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Monthly Archives: December 2010

Through a child’s eyes

I was fortunate enough to attend a seasonal performance of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, performed by the Houston Ballet and choreographed by Ben Stevenson. In the world of ballet, with which I am not at very familiar, it appears that the primary attribution for a production goes to the choreographer. But to me what is constant, pervasive, and the foundation of it all is the music, and so I call this Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker with no disrespect to Mr Stevenson. I admit that this was my first ballet in many, many years, when I saw a Russian ice ballet performance in college. Just a few words about ballet in general: it is easily one of my favorite musical forms, and it really only recently dawned on me, could it be difficult or even impossible to recreate the original choreography of a ballet? Were ballets written with specific groups or specific visions in mind, as was often the case with concertos being written for a certain soloist? I admit I love the movement in ballet. It is artistry, elegance, and athleticism, and to me it’s just as spectacular as watching a Ryan Kalish somersault diving catch at Fenway Park. To connect the ballet music that I know so well in The Nutcracker with the live performance and dance was really a treat. While I struggle to keep up with and fully appreciate opera, I think I should attend more ballet (but never see the movie Black Swan again, due to its agoraphobic intensity — it’s actually quite a well-made film).

We sat in the first balcony in a packed Wortham Center Theatre, next to a family with a young child. Because this is a very family-oriented production, it was only natural to hear children squealing and being hushed throughout the performance. But the wonderment and delight that was experienced by this young lady next to us was quite amusing: from the Mouse King (ew, is that real?) to the emergence of the Nutcracker Prince (wow, how did they do that?), the magic of the story really came alive again.

Naturally, the performance was beautiful, and I was impressed by both the quality of the set design and the choreography. Granted, I do not have the longstanding tradition of Nutcracker performances by which to measure this one, but I tend to think that most performances will be very high quality. Only the rare, bold and adventurous deviation from the standard Nutcracker or obviously low quality exceptions might exist somewhere, but certainly not on this stage tonight. Our performance was led by Simon Ball as the Nutcracker Prince, Karina González as the Sugarplum Fairy, and the impossibly cute Emily Bowen as Clara. Aside from their excellent solos, I particularly enjoyed the Spanish and Arabian dances and was surprised by a familiarity to even more pieces here than I had realized. I am definitely familiar with all of the pieces in any Nutcracker Suite, but I really do want to get the entire piece on a recording or even better in performance to see it in its entirety again.

For their part, the orchestra performed admirably, though I have to say that I’m spoiled by our excellent Boston-area venues with respect to the sound. Our vantage point was great for seeing depth of dancers on the stage, but I found the sound to have little dramatic presence in the relatively tiny space up in the balcony and around us. Sounds seemed to die a bit more. I enjoyed, however, the percussive addition of pointe shoes on the hardwood stage, which I imagine was purposefully done.

At the symphony, I enjoy most to close my eyes and listen intensely to the music: to me to experience the orchestra is not to see them but to try and listen for their signature nuances. While I had only passing moments in overtures to experience the music here, ballet is obviously demanding of visual attention, but the music is richer for it.

It also occurs to me that I cannot imagine how I would know the names of any of the parts if it weren’t for the program: as far as I can tell, there is no outright mention of the name “Clara”, for instance, anywhere during the actual piece.

We saw this performance the day after Christmas, but since we had all been working tirelessly up until Christmas day, it sort of provided for me the capstone on the best parts of my musical holiday. The sublime dancing, the beautiful music, and the expert commentary really sealed the experience. I’m sad to be missing other Houston Ballet performances, but perhaps I should resolve for the new year to attend more ballet with our excellent group in Boston.

Delightful Holiday Pops

I managed to go again this year somehow to the Holiday Pops concert, again with SG, with whom I went last year. Unfortunately on this occasion there was no HH to complete our merry band of Acadia wanderers. But we did get in touch with HH while at the concert to express our well wishes while she could not be with us, as she’s since moved to the West coast. I love the Pops concert each year; it’s the most casual of times in Symphony Hall and usually the only time I get to hear Santa performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and Keith Lockhart.

I suppose the one story I’ll tell — aside from spinning basses, jolly Tanglewood, audience caroling, and last year’s excellent ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas reading — is the story of the lonely orchestra member. Bear in mind that this is not a sad story but somewhat of an amusing one, at least to me. I will not give away too much information for fear of indicting this person, but I will say this this is an orchestra member who has performed in the last two seasons of Holiday Pops concerts. I suspect he is an annual fixture. It is my strong suspicion that this person, yes, whose name I know, did not grow up celebrating in the Christian tradition. There are strong reasons to assume such a thing, though I cannot know for sure. However, this person wore plainly on [his, for simplicity] face that he did not want to be there, as his eyes darted around the room while he dutifully sustained his musical part during the Christmas carols. A half-grin adorned his sheepish face, and one could easily see the cartoon of the moment lifting thought bubbles that questioned, “What am I doing here?” I always like to point this person out to others because I find it hilarious, but this year held a surprising difference. This year, our favorite Holiday Pops musician was looking rather sprightly, and he actually appeared to be enjoying the Christmas music that so clearly had irked him just the year before! It was a Christmas miracle and a welcome transformation. But, to that musician (and you know who you are, I’m sure!), I will continue pointing you out to my table companions in the future and tell them your delightful tale.

Let’s Read This …

It dawned on me that I’m reading a lot of great music-related stuff online that I thought I’d share with anyone out there who might be reading. If nothing else, I can keep track of things of some of my favorite articles. Admittedly, much of my reading comes from the same few sources: NPR and the BBC, mostly, since they are more likely to cover music that’s more interesting to me.

NPR Music :: Syl Johnson: Soulful Like Marvin, Funky Like James
BBC Music :: Sudan musicians fear return to the ‘Stone Age’
BSO :: Schumann Music Criticism Contest winners
NPR Classical’s Deceptive Cadence :: Best Musical Moment of 2010: Jennifer Higdon’s Unsung Heroes

I also read the excellent magazine Wax Poetics pretty frequently, which I’ve written about before.

‘Tis the season

The Christmas season does not start the day after Halloween or even the day after Thanksgiving for me. It really falls in line with the first big musical awakening that I experience as a reminder that it’s impending. Sometimes it’s hearing Christmas carols in a public place like a store, but this year, two events today really signaled the coming of the holiday for me. The day started off with a caroling world record attempt at the Prudential Center with the Keith Lockhart and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Under the shadow of the convention center and surrounding buildings, a mass of carolers bundled up for the cold waited around while some local radio DJs and a scary looking bipedal Rudolph entertained the crowd. My friend MP accompanied me to caroling, where we met a girl who sings alto with the Back Bay Chorale with someone with whom I work. We ended up talking and singing with her and got to hear her beautiful voice while MP and I sang mostly loudly. Unfortunately, the group of us did not even come near the Guinness world record, since they have a precision better than the thousands of people. Nevertheless, it was a fun way to ring in the season.

I was actually thankful to be in the area already, since I had to go to Symphony Hall and pick up student rush tickets to the Handel and Haydn Society’s (HHS) 3 pm performance of George Friedrich Handel’s Messiah, led by Harry Christophers. I met my symphony friend CB there and we waited with a handful of others for the HHS ticketing to open. We were fortunate enough to get first balcony, fourth row center-right tickets. I think I prefer the sound in the first balcony center to anywhere else in Symphony Hall, so I was very excited about the seating.

The last performance I saw of the Messiah was in December 2008 with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. (I’m not sure why I did not write a post about it at the time.) Because this music has been so commonly performed at christmastime, I rarely hear it during the year, and it was a treat to get another live performance. But it’s really timeless music in the Christian tradition.

The HHS orchestra is on the smaller side. They featured just one bassist, for instance, and I guess the entire brass section was just the two lone trumpets. I’m not clear whether or not this was in Handel’s orchestration and also typical of a period orchestra (often orchestras playing Mozart are smaller) or just the constraints of HHS. I believe that the orchestra could have benefitted from a larger group in Symphony Hall. A piece like this, with literally trumpeting voices, can never have too much power behind it. I think the smaller Jordan Hall might have been a perfect venue for them, in fact.

Nevertheless, the hall was filled with beautiful choral voices that are my favorite to hear live. While not at first sold on alto Catherine Wyn-Rogers, my lasting impression was of her beautiful voice. I really did enjoy soprano Sophie Bevan as well. Her coloratura was well-modulated, though not quite as strong as some I’ve heard, such as that of Cecilia Bartoli. For their parts, tenor Allan Clayton and bass Sumner Thomson were excellent. Though we hear a duet of alto and tenor in the third part, I would have liked for Handel to include more vocal duets outside of the chorus. Another intriguing combination from the Messiah was the solo trumpet along with Mr Thomson, which was quite engaging. One amusing moment was the point at which trumpets appeared on the far right of the first balcony and treated some in the front orchestra sections to a festive surround sound experience. The performance was a wonderful way to continue the musical holiday season for me.

I enjoy several songs in this piece, and they might well be among the more popular excerpts, though I’m really not sure. In Part I, the entire ‘Wonderful Councillor’ exaltation is quite uplifting and always a piece I look forward to. It’s the statement of prophesy that many Christians believe is the prophesy for the coming of Jesus Christ.

In Part II, the alto’s first aria is another powerful passage. Here is presented a timeless idea but also a specific prophesy in Isaiah about the suffering and rejection among men that Christ would endure. But there is a picture of great strength here, as is most clearly evidenced by the final phrase: “he hid not his face from shame and spitting.”

Later in Part II, I find the “sheep” chorus kind of funny. Not because I don’t respect the theology in the shepherd/sheep analogy, but because it’s just funny out of context to hear a chorus singing, “All we like sheep”.

I also am compelled by a bass solo in Part II, “Why do the nations so furiously rage together, and why do the people imagine a vain thing?” It’s a timeless question that is as poignant today.

And of course, the chorus sings Hallelujah, and immediately our audience stood on cue. There was no need for printed instruction for this knowledgeable crowd, which I probably should not have been as surprised about. But for a person who is Christian and finds sacred choral music among the most connecting, beautiful expressions of faith, this was not merely standing in custom for the piece but rather a proud moment of praise.

Finally, in Part III, “Since by man came death” collapsed and rose instantaneously, effectively punctuating the duality of the text’s emotional message. Both “Since by man came death” and “For as in Adam all die” were sung in floating, ghostly whispers, while exalted were “by man came also the resurrection of the dead” and “even so in Christ shall all be made alive”.

Spanning modernity

Tonight’s Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) performance led by James Levine featured music from three distinct eras of Western art music. On the program was Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 performed by Nikolaj Znaider, John Harbison’s Symphony No. 2, and Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major. This was an eclectic combination in my estimation, from three distinct musical periods, so an interesting bit of programming from the BSO. My friend DG (not Deutsche Grammophon) saw her first BSO performance tonight, and we ran into my friends VA and JA on the latter’s first evening back in Boston from a short sabbatical.

I believe that it is uncharacteristic for the featured soloist’s piece to be performed first on the concert program, but the Mozart was first. I heard Mr Znaider perform the Elgar Violin Concerto last season, which I enjoyed very much. I noticed again that Mr Znaider’s towering figure almost equaled Mr Levine’s podium-assisted height. I have played and am particularly familiar with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3, written in 1775. Strangely enough, it sounded nothing like my interpretation, and this is greatly to Mr Znaider and the BSO’s credit. I do not listen to recordings of the piece very often, so hearing the solo violin part with the full orchestra is something of a treat. I know the first movement well, and the little touches, trills, turns, and staccato peppered throughout were delightful.

I recall in high school, a friend JB was learning this piece, and there was something particularly wooden about her early attempts. It is such a lively, youthful affair, very bright, and I recall wanting to hear that out of her performance. It’s a particular quality of much of Mozart’s lighter music that I’m particularly critical of, as I was with Richard Goode’s Mozart piano concerto performance last season. Here, however, I felt that it was captured brilliantly.

The cleanness of the piece was also nearly flawless, which is difficult in some of the chord-laden passages and those involving rapid string transitions. I was somewhat underwhelmed by the cadenzas, as they were fairly short and not quite as intricate as I would have liked. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the piece very much and was delighted to hear it for the first time live with the always excellent BSO and Mr Znaider.

The second piece was Mr Harbison’s Symphony No. 2, which was written in 1987. I’m not completely clear on this programming choice to be bookended by the Mozart and the Schumann, but it provided true variety tonight, which I enjoyed. My experience with Harbison is short and easily summarized: I enjoyed his Double Concerto premiere very much but have not enjoyed Symphony Nos. 1 or 3. I admit that I arrived tonight with more than a little bit of skepticism about my reaction to Symphony No. 2, but I was determined to give it a chance. I have some more general reactions to the content of this music, since it was my first listening, but I must admit that I liked the piece, though I think DG did not. Perhaps somewhat disingenuously, I imagined it as a score to a modern film, and that helped me understand transitions between its parts a bit better. I admit that I was unaware of the transitions between the movements in this piece, and I do not believe they were immediately obvious with big breaks or grand exits and entrances.

Generally, I wonder how true it is that the meter in modern classical music is more unusual than what one might find in older music from earlier eras. By this I am referring to the difficulty in the rhythmic structure: everything appears syncopated, which gives immense difficulty for getting the timing right, and it almost sounds disorganized until this is accepted and then appreciated. I feel like out of the modern pieces I’ve heard at the BSO, including this one, this has often been the case rhythmically. I almost feel like, if all these things are true and not just my misperception, then it could be that this technique is almost over-employed. In the same way that silence is a powerful tool to convey emotion when used appropriately, I think that certain rhythmic structures and polyrhythmic structures should be used with a great deal of understanding about the responsibility of doing so. Of course, much more musically inclined persons than I, such as these modern composers, have undoubtedly considered this issue.

The final piece on the program following the intermission tonight was Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, written in 1841, the third separate musical era on the program this evening. I have heard the BSO’s performances of Symphony Nos. 1, 3, and 4 this season, and this was the completion of the Schumann symphonic cycle! Give this man a cookie! (I missed the Beethoven cycle last season, I believe, by one or perhaps two symphonies because of work conflicts. The Schumann cycle is far easier to be in attendance for.) I greatly prefer Nos. 4 and 1 to No. 3, but I would have to rank No. 2 above No. 1 (if that makes any sense at all, you can have my cookie). The 2nd starts off a bit hesitantly but soon builds to a climactic ending … of just the first movement! The Scherzo is feverish in its pace, a torrent of strings, the third movement, sweet. And the symphony just gets better and better as it continues, with the fourth and final movement being my favorite. It caps off a rather larger-than-life symphonic experience and was rendered expertly by the BSO.

Perhaps one of the strangest concerts I’ve attended at the BSO, the audience made it reminiscent of a high school orchestra performance with their clear lack of symphony etiquette on full display. The end of every movement of the Mozart and Schumann were met with hesitant applause from about a quarter of the audience. It almost seemed fitting after Mr Znaider’s performance in the first movement of the violin concerto, but even this prompted a thankfully patient glance from a swiveled Mr Levine directed toward an unsettled audience. Thankfully Mr Levine was able to suppress further applause at the end of the Adagio expressivo of the Schumann symphony, which had started in my mind to kill the mood created by the beautiful music. The applause was completely and utterly out of place when it was tendered prematurely to a dramatic pause in the final movement of the Schumann far from the end of the piece. It’s one thing to applause between movements, which I find would be best reserved for only the right circumstances and only for a particularly moving performance (such as I very much felt like doing during Joshua Bell’s Brahms but nevertheless refrained), but it’s entirely another to clap perhaps just to hear the sound of one’s own clapping, since the person or persons clearly did not know when the end of the piece was. I suspect it is this same individual who clapped nearly with the final note of the piece as well, akin to cheering during the national anthem during “O’er the land of the free” and not after the “home of the brave”. (Actually in the anthem example, this is becoming more and more commonplace.) But here this person should realize that he or she is not the only patron listening to the music, and even persons on stage were noticeably agitated by the perceived rudeness. Naturally the irony here is that clapping is a gesture of appreciation that was proffered inappropriately and lost some of its meaning.

It’s all inconsequential at the end of the day, though this marks the second performance this season with an admittedly bizarre audience participation. Overall I enjoyed the evening with DG and all of the music performed here tonight, spanning three distinct musical time periods as if they were somehow meant to be played together. It’s a truly unique experience to put a concert like this together, and the more I think about it, the more I appreciate it and want to understand (from first principles of the music) if a rationale exists behind it.

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