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Monthly Archives: January 2010

Fatima, Fatima

Rarely do I hear a song whose lyrics are quite as moving as “Fatima,” from K’naan’s second and most recent album Troubadour. K’naan is a Somalian refugee whom I first heard on the FIFA soccer video games around 2005 or 2006. The song was Soobax, which featured a pretty sweet video of K’naan traveling around his homeland. That first album release, Dusty Foot Philosopher, certainly ranks among the strongest recent hip hop releases in my mind, and it was quite a surprise to hear a sophomore effort that lived up to a strong billing. “Fatima” is even a gem among the several hot tracks on Troubadour, which include Dreamer, Wavin’ the Flag, ABCs, and I Come Prepared. Actually, nearly the entire album is hot: it’s definitely worthwhile to pick up.

I had actually dismissed this song in favor of some of the other tracks, because in a sense this song is a ballad. But on a run today, I listened carefully to the lyrics, and I gotta say, it almost drew me to tears. Of course, K’naan tells us not to, so there it is.

It starts with an upbeat tempo and instrumentation, and when he starts, it sounds like he’s telling a good story slowly. The guitar enters lightly, and it’s a love song from the opening: “I fell in love with my neighbor’s daughter.” At the chorus, “Is it true when they say all you need is just love / What about those who have loved / Only to find that it’s taken away,” one wonders if this is just another story of a love come and gone, lost perhaps to the fickleness of youth.

The piano that’s playing the melody already has some kind of finality of the story inherent in it, but K’naan continues playfully through the verses, talking about the love they shared with lines like, “I asked God to slow down the seconds” and the poignant, “you so bright you shine like my TV,” which sounds beautiful only when one realizes that the poverty in Somalia may make owning an operating television a far more rare event than we might understand. It’s a simple image for a fairly simple, beautiful song.

When the chorus enters the second time, one still thinks it’s just love lost, and the line, “before he stole you away on that fateful day” gives the sense this is a love song gone wrong instead of something more tragic. At the end of the choruses, the horns double over the name Fatima, and then the horns repeat the same bar, sounding like they are saying “Fatima,” triumphantly. This is a song of celebration for Fatima.

In his last verse of praise of this girl, he speaks of her breathtaking beauty, “How come everyone hushed when she walked by … how come the angel wanted to hold her?” And then he addresses her directly, “Fatima, I’m in America,” proceeding to mention that she would have liked the “parks in Connecticut.” The use of “would have” in this verse is explained now in the next verse, immediately, “Damn you shooter, Damn you the building / Whose walls hid the blood she was spilling / Damn you Country so good at killing / Damn you feeling, for persevering. The meter of this verse mirrors the previous, sweet verses. The “Damn Yous” are even matter-of-fact. There is no hint of anger, but now you know that this is not a song of just a love lost.

The chorus that follows now means something completely different. Each identical chorus gives you a different sense of the song, a brilliant writing strategy that tells the story really effectively. In the last part of the choruses, he addresses Fatima directly and says, “Fatima, what did the young man say / Before he stole you away on that fateful day?” In this final chorus, he addresses her again, “Fatima, what did the gun man say / Before he took you away on that fateful day?”

And one gets the feeling personally that here a loved one was killed by this gunman, a beautiful life wasted, and for what? Now even the melodic piano sounds tragic, especially on a single sustained note that lingers. All of a sudden everything makes sense: “You can’t have the sweet with no sour … No chance of a probable shower … I wanted to protect and support her … I had dreams beyond our border … I better chill and count my own blessings … Then one day she never came to meet me.”

In the spoken refrain at the end of the song, the piano slightly alters the melody, going into a higher progression, a hopeful turn over the call to celebrate Fatima’s life, instead of mourn her tragic loss. I have to say that this is an incredible and difficult outlook on death, and I get the sense that K’naan or other Somalis have seen far too much of it in one life.

This is a beautiful but heartbreaking song that I think is very different from some of the more fun, dance oriented songs that he’s done. Of course he maintains his political message, which is simple in its iteration of the harsh reality in Somalia — K’naan manages to convey this message and tell a very personal tale of Fatima.

Inspiring Tchaikovsky

Like many, I would number the Brahms and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerti among my favorites in the standard repertoire. For the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major (Op. 35), I find it to be both fulfilling and beautiful. From the moments in the overture building to the solo, one can sense that greatness can be achieved in just a few bars. The dynamics fall, only briefly, to emerge the solo violin in a sweet and subtle melody that conjures an image of a spirit rising. It adds a few playful touches and never exhibits even a moment of harshness in its rich chords. The first movement ends brilliantly, building throughout to reach the final epic triumph. The second movement is brief but tender. It develops almost cautiously, and it ends almost without resolution, serving as a true bridge to the thrill-a-minute finale.

It has been said that the Tchaikovsky was greeted with a chilling reception by critics upon its premiere, and violinist Leopold Auer famously called it “unplayable.” If this last endorsement was not sufficient in gaining a sense of the magnitude of immense difficulty in the piece, finally hearing the piece live performed by a young artist certainly gave me a completely new appreciation for the piece.

Tess Varley is that artist, a senior violin performance student at the College of Fine Arts (CFA) at Boston University, who gave her capstone senior recital with a performance of the Tchaikovsky with a piano reduction of the orchestra. Varley also played Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 in C Minor (Op. 30 No. 2), accompanied on both by pianist Maja Tremiszewska.

The recital took place in the CFA’s Concert Hall, which acoustically resembles perhaps that of a high school’s dilapidated auditorium. Acoustic paneling at the rear of the stage appeared to be a last-ditch effort at squeezing some semblance of reasonable sound out of the place, and while Varley’s violin filled the space admirably well, one had no sense that her dynamic range and tone could have been appreciated fully. Transients and decays of notes died instead of lingered and not purposefully. It was the first performance I had heard in the place, and admittedly I am spoiled by my primary venues of Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall, but this was surprisingly poor for the primary recital space of the CFA. From my recollection and without direct comparison, the Tsai Performance Center at BU is markedly better but admittedly too large of a venue for a small recital such as last night’s.

It was the first time I had heard the Beethoven that I can recall, and it was a very nice piece. Particularly intriguing to me was the Scherzo: Allegro third movement that really displayed Varley’s talent and confidence on the spiccato passages, where she seemed relaxed. This would also be evident in several places in the fast movements of the Tchaikovsky as well and I think demonstrates that bow control is among her greatest strengths.

It was the first time I had heard the Tchaikovsky with a piano reduction of the orchestral parts, and it was a unique experience. Only the privileged few have access to the resources and time of a full orchestra as partners for the piece, and it was naturally less rich as a result. But this is a piece I know well (of course not even in the same class as Tess), and I swear I could hear the faint orchestral overlay onto the piano part as they played. Especially powerful were percussive parts and the march-like horns that are simply irreplaceable.

Varley’s poise and maturity were plainly evident, as the piece pushes any soloist to the limits of the instrument in several places, only to return to more solid ground in brief moments. In some spots, especially with large runs shifting wildly up and down the fingerboard and crossing over the range of strings, she may have been on the brink of losing control like a race car driver taking a turn perhaps too quickly, but inevitably she prevailed and maintained her line. Her confidence did seem to vary slightly from passage to passage, especially notable in the early first movement, where it seemed less secure than during her cadenza, which allowed her the freedom of expression, as she may have been able to rely on her clearly expert preparation and her careful attention to her practiced and polished technique. She simply nailed the cadenza in the first movement with polish and grace. One could sense that this young woman controlled her nerves well, and she required no audible settling time. Even before appearing back on stage before the Tchaikovsky, when the lights were dimmed and her friends and family (and I) eagerly awaited her return to the stage, we could hear guffaws of laughter coming from backstage, which surely were signs of her ability to relax in an understandably high stakes moment.

I was thrilled to hear the piece performed live by this wonderfully talented violinist, and I would like to thank Tess for the opportunity. Her interpretation of the piece was also quite notable, I felt, and it reminded me of the interpretations I enjoy most in the recorded repertoire (the likes of Joshua Bell or Janine Jansen rather than Jascha Heifetz). She gave me a better sense of the technical demands of the piece, as I mentioned, and her execution was, overall, superb. I hope that she enjoys a long and fruitful orchestral career if she so chooses, and I strongly suspect that she would be an asset to any orchestra in which she plays.

Passion

There is a scene in the movie “Amadeus” in which Mozart is conducting his opera Don Giovanni. Upon the conclusion of the masterpiece, Mozart, clearly fatigued, looks back and is greeted with mild applause from a sparse audience. I can only imagine that Sir Colin Davis and composer James MacMillan endured a similar — but not quite identical — reaction when looking over the crowd after the second performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and Tanglewood Festival Chorus in the American premiere of MacMillan’s St John’s Passion. At the beginning of the night, the crowd was by no means large; in fact it was one of the smallest crowds I had ever seen at Symphony Hall. By my falling chairs metric (see this post), it was perhaps the smallest, since before Davis’ baton was ever raised, three chairs disrupted the quiet. My entire section was about half vacated.

What was strange to me, however, was post-intermission. Looking up into the second balcony, there were two completely empty sections that I do not think were empty before. This suggested that there were large sections of people who had left at intermission during a single piece that spanned both halves of the evening, which means that large numbers of people may not have been terribly pleased with the piece. Those of us who remained, certainly the majority, were happy to give a proper ovation to MacMillan when he appeared on stage.

The idea that something was so appalling to force the exodus of so many is curious and reminded me of a comment I heard recently about how repulsive she found a recent performance of Handel’s Messiah due to the “grotesque” display of religiousness in the piece. It’s a particularly bizarre comment considering that the Messiah was clearly written as a religious piece. Without the Messiah, simply as thematic comment and not even with religious commentary, there is no composition. While it could be argued that one can enjoy the music from a secular perspective, the theme of the piece should be respected. By “respect,” I can illustrate what I mean by example: if I find out that a composer wrote music with a specific intention, such as the dedication of Brahms’ Double Concerto as somewhat of a peace offering to Johannes Brahms’ estranged friend Joseph Joachim, I fully respect the intended meaning of the piece, even though it’s not very difficult to hear a lover’s relationship (which was not intended). Nevertheless it is not a love song in the sense that I first heard it, and I have come to appreciate it for its redemptive power between two close friends. In a similar manner, hearing religious music from secular composers is not perfectly ideal to me, as I would much prefer to hear religious music from persons who truly believed that they were honoring their religious beliefs.

I extend this to hearing the Messiah for that particular critic: if one wishes to decouple the music from the purpose of the music, then what, really, is the point? Music for music’s sake is sterile and emotionless, but what we love so much about the music is the emotional content that it elicits. For me, there is no greater musical joy than to experience music with others, live, in a way that makes you feel like you are interacting with the musicians, the composer, and the audience. It’s a visceral experience, and I would argue that the connection between other music lovers is important. If something in this experience is lost, such as when one cannot appreciate or respect the intention of the composer, or when one denigrates the performance of an artist, then it is less meaningful of an experience.

I cannot help but wonder if tonight’s attendance disparities were explained by an inability for this audience to be drawn to new religious music and then to appreciate or just respect it.

The music itself was bold. The string sections of the orchestra played a limited role, while brass instruments matched the soaring voices, which rang inside the hall. Percussion was employed to create a sense of drama. I am not at all familiar with MacMillan, who was on hand tonight, but I felt that he sufficiently used music to convey the intensity of the passion of Christ. It was moving. He refrained from lyrical repetitiveness which was appreciated in certain situations, where one does not come to any greater understanding by the tenth turn of a phrase. But the limited uses he made of repeated phrases were surprisingly appropriate and natural: this was also reinforced by the natural repetition of a musical passage, when one just senses that the next bars should reiterate the preceding ones.

The text MacMillan chose was in English, and the passages were from the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament, which presents a translation that has a unique clarity of prose among extant English translations. One could argue that it is among the more accurate of the modern English translations, but that is subject to a great debate outside the scope of this discussion. There is something to be said about this decision, especially since the more flowery King James Version could well have been an option for an English text. But in this decision restraint was shown, I think, that portrays MacMillan as a composer in the tradition of Einstein: make it as simple as possible but not simpler. To borrow from Johann Von Strack’s character in Amadeus, it’s time we had a Passion in our own language: plain English for plain people. While I am sure other Passions exist in English but am unfamiliar with them, I am glad to see a contemporary composer who is willing to use this language to convey the story to a new generation of English speaking persons. MacMillan is not, however, completely immune to the allure of using another language for effect, as he employs a limited amount of Latin at the end of each part of the piece. It’s unclear to me what the reasons are behind this, but I did not find it distracting, as long as the translations were available in the program.

The choruses were arranged in two parts primarily, with full ranges of voices in each. The narrative chorus was smaller and stage right, and the large chorus occupied the rear of the stage and served as the voice of all characters except for Christ, who was sung by baritone Christopher Maltman. I cannot reiterate enough how inspiring it is to hear the human voice radiate inside of Symphony Hall; it never ceases to amaze me. Uniquely captivating was Maltman’s solo voice and the dynamics he could elicit effectively. In his final line, Maltman conveyed with immense appropriateness the solemnity of the man whose fate was known and accepted, reciting, “It is finished.” He was perfect in the delivery of this line, which musically led into the chorus’ finish and the orchestral coda that enabled something of a quiet reflection of the personae dramatis.

In recent weeks I had actually been attempting to break into the wide world of Western Art music’s rich Christian tradition. It is a daunting landscape of composers and works, and I came merely to the conclusion that the starting point had to be JS Bach. While I have not yet figured out where in his exhaustive catalogue to begin, I was fortunate to have MacMillan show up on the BSO program to get immediately a sense of the modern composer’s take on this 2,000 year old story. It is admittedly rare that I encounter a modern composition that I find moving or even relatable, but I’ve found both in MacMillan’s composition.

Brilliant sound from Znaider

This week’s performances at the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) feature Sir Colin Davis conducting, with Nikolaj Znaider playing solo violin. The BSO performed Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 “Prague,” which is a nice piece that I’ve heard before and have recordings of but do not know well. Znaider performed the Elgar Violin Concerto.

I was seated stage left on the first balcony, with a crick in my neck thanks in part to the Loud Breather sitting next to me but great acoustics otherwise. The seat provided me with a view from the top that I seldom had experienced in Symphony Hall before, with a clear angle at the two violin sections situated next to one another on the stage. The full strength of the symphony returned tonight, with Malcolm Lowe and Tamara Smirnova back at first stand (order restored in my universe).

From this viewpoint, Znaider appeared larger than life on the stage, a towering figure whose actual stature I had difficulty ascertaining. But the sound he produced from that ex-Kreisler 1732 Guarneri del Gesù instrument was as large as he appeared. Rich and magnificent, the power emanating from that tiny violin body filled the hall with grandeur at each note. According to the BSO’s notes, the del Gesù’s namesake Fritz Kreisler himself thought of the Elgar that it ranked among the greatest concertos written for the instrument, and he gave its premiere performance. To think how nearly the exact vibrating tones of the piece had echoed from within the violin so many years before and were now finding another, unique escape on a new stage ….

The Elgar Violin Concerto is a long, complex piece. I’m going to have to give it more time before making any judgments on it, though I must admit that the melodies in the Brahms or the Bruch are more palatable for me on first taste. I suspect there are gems to be discovered in the Elgar if one has the presence to listen for them, and hearing Znaider for my first recital cannot be a bad beginning. It is clear that there are a great many number of talented violinists out there, and it’s still an exciting time to see what fresh creativity they can bring to the hallowed old traditions of this timeless music.

Schubert rude by comparison

I cannot recall a time when I did not know the name Yo-Yo Ma. For someone who played classical violin, I suppose it is difficult to avoid coming across the famous cellist’s name, but it never dawned on me that there are a large number of people, of all degrees of education, who have not heard of Yo-Yo Ma. So I definitely took it personally when I had immense trouble finding someone to go to Ma’s performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) this week. An unfortunately string of events transpired such that I was nearly stuck with an extra orchestra seat, but luckily my friend AL was free and, after searching for “Yo-Yo Ma” on the Internet, decided to join me.

Certainly there was some anticipation associated with my first time hearing Ma live. My brother has seen him twice, and we sent my parents to see him just this past year. Out of my immediate family, I was the only one who had not seen him perform live, and as soon as I saw his name on the schedule for this BSO season, I got seats in the orchestra section, about 30 rows back and stage left.

In the past few months, I had ended up in a cello concerto phase, listening to Pablo Casals, Jacqueline du Pré, and others perform the Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Dvorak, Elgar, and many other cello concertos. This led me to a familiarity with the first two of Haydn’s three or four cello concertos, which was good timing considering that Ma was set to play Haydn’s first cello concerto, the only one that appears to be undisputedly attributed to him. I can find evidence of three of the four cello concertos, and it is third that seems to be lacking information, for reasons that remain unclear to me. Among the three, the so-called Second Concerto, in D Major (Hob VIIb/2) is my favorite. Nevertheless, I was pleased to find out that I was familiar with the First Concerto in C Major (Hob VIIb/1).

Ma spiritedly appeared on stage with what I believe was his Davidov Stradivarius cello, and he genuinely looked pleased to perform. There was no music or stand for him, and he took his place among the reduced strength orchestra, with conductor Ton Koopman. The solo part for the Haydn does not start for a few bars, and yet Ma looked like he was completely involved in his playing, which caused me a moment of pause before realizing what was happening: Ma was air bowing or lightly playing the entire cello part! He enjoyed playing so much that he wanted to be constantly playing. Later I would be slightly disappointed that he did not join the cello section in the orchestra for the remaining pieces. When his solo started, however, the sound that he managed to coax from his cello was something spectacular to behold. The sound was truly effortless, the Davidov clearly responsive. It was the smoothest sound I had ever heard from a cello before, and it was so beautiful that I now wonder if that was what a cello should sound like. Granted, the Haydn is an admittedly polite piece, so it’s not like Ma would be reaching down into the belly of the instrument to conjure up the throes of passion. But nevertheless, there was never any grit or biting in the response, even on staccato passages — they were as noted. It is easy to attribute this to a combination of the bow and the instrument via the player, and I’m very curious about what bow he chose for the evening’s performance. In any case, while I’ve enjoyed Ma’s recorded catalogue very much and have known people who have met him personally, his excitement for the music, even when he wasn’t really playing, was contagious. The performance made me a fan.

I lament again that this piece was not the most dramatic or thematically interesting to me as, say, the Lalo or the Elgar. It would have been nice to hear Ma take on the Roccoco variations of Tchaikovsky, the closest he ever came to writing a proper cello concerto, apparently. While I’ve heard a couple of recordings of his interpretation of the Brahms’ Double Concerto, it would certainly be a dream to hear him perform that live. Especially the fireworks of the third movement would be interesting to hear on his cello, in contrast to the sensibilities of the Haydn.

In fact, it was not just the Haydn Cello Concerto that was straightforward and nice. The small orchestral ensemble performed Haydn’s Symphony No. 98 and CPE Bach’s Symphony in G Major, all of which elicited a similar reaction from me. These were pleasant pieces that were surprisingly uninteresting to me, a trend that could be summarized by my greater interest in Romantic era music. It’s not at all to say that there isn’t a solemn or ethereal quality that can be present in Baroque or Classical pieces, but the Romantic era was all about drama and overwhelming intensity, which are more welcome in art than in personal relationships!

The Schubert Unfinished Symphony is reflective of this. It was my first encounter with the Schubert, and I was not expecting it, making it the evening’s gem. In my head, I can only imagine how the final two movements might have unfolded, and it’s a terrible shame that the piece ends with no apparent sense of resolution.

I did not stand in line for rush tickets for the final performance on Tuesday, though I’m already partially regretting the decision, since I don’t know when I’ll next be able to hear Yo-Yo Ma and the Davidov. The sound of it resonates with me, and it’s made me eager to pay closer attention to the sound of other cellos. Of course it takes both a magician and a willing rabbit to make the trick work, but together, they were quite entrancing.

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