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You may have heard me mention before airing this ensemble piece from the end of Act I of Rossini's The Barber of Seville that is was performed live on CBS's Late Show With David Letterman. Proof's in the pudding:
(This is the 2007 Met cast and includes Diana Damrau, Juan Diego Florez, Samuel Ramey, and Petter Mattei.)
by James Hogan
Some of the biggest classical music news last week came--no surprise here--as a result of the Inauguration, which featured a John Williams arrangement of "Simple Gifts" played by renowned musicians Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGill. But the buzz was overwhelmed later in the week when the committee in charge of the program revealed that the music spectators and television viewers heard was prerecorded. The cold temperatures, the announcement said, made it too difficult to consider using the live performance.
Any minor controversy regarding musicians lip-synching to music (or in this case, bow, reed, and key-synching) always brings to mind the ill-fated 1980s group, Milli Vanilli. Their meteoric rise to fame, and their hit song, "Blame it on the Rain," crashed harshly to the ground when they were exposed to have been singing mutely all along.
My take on this--and you're welcome to disagree with me in the comments section below--is that we're comparing apples to oranges. There is no doubt that Perlman, Ma, and company are incredible musicians, and their decision to use a prerecorded track in place of a live performance came through common sense, not through any fear that they would bungle their parts. While I'm sure any errors in performing that particular Shaker tune would have eventually been overshadowed by the other noteworthy slip-up in the program, surely no one could blame the musicians for wanting to make it perfect the first time. (Is anyone suggesting that Justice Roberts should use a tape next time?)
Some critics have pointed out that the Marine Band did not use a recording, even though they were exposed to the same temperatures. Marching bands, however, react more favorably to the cold than string ensembles. You can keep a horn warm prior to a performance by blowing hot air through it, so there's less risk of the group careening out of tune. String instruments--pianos especially--can react with shocking speed to changes in temperature. And no one wanted to spy a piano tuner ducking under the hood of a Steinway while Aretha Franklin was trying to sing.
So blame it on the cold, and celebrate that the unprecedented millions who descended upon our nation's capital, of so many ages and backgrounds, were able to at least hear a worthwhile bit of classical music.
by James Hogan
Back not too long ago when I was in college, I would sometimes spend Friday nights in a somewhat Bohemian way. My friend Nick rented a house on the top of a mountain, and I would drive up and start the weekend there, drinking good beer, as he would set up an impromptu jazz concert in his living room. He kept his drum set there, and there was a Rhodes piano, and his other friends--a bass player, guitarist, two sax guys named Jim and Eric, and maybe a singer would come up, light cigarettes, and play for hours.
Yes, I realize my undergraduate experience was somewhat different.
Two things this week brought those college memories back: first, this article in the New York Times about a jazz group that meets in a Manhattan apartment; and second, a small concert I attended Tuesday night in Statesville.
The Tuesday concert featured the Blues City Brass, a quintet ensemble that is a division of the Mid-South Navy Band. Another old friend of mine, JeVone Primus, plays trumpet in the group, and he was excited to see my wife and me there on a cold, snowy evening. They played in a church for about fifty people, and the result was a concert that felt informal and intimate. (Yes, informal and intimate--not often words you associate with the U.S. Navy.) The experience left me wanting more--more time spent in close proximity to musicians, more time spent listening to music with small groups of people.
So I bring this question to you, loyal readers: Where are the best small concerts in our area? Is there a coffee shop that features a string quartet every Tuesday? Please share all about Charlotte's hidden displays of good music in the comments section.
WDAV Director of New Media Rachel Stewart is on The Mall in Washington, DC and sending back images. See what she sees!
The crowd grows as we all head to the Mall to find a good spot.
Waiting to see the President-Elect sworn in.
Aretha Franklin sings "My Country Tis of Thee." As viewed from the World War II Monument.
Violinist Itzhak Perlman performing "Air and Simple Gifts" by John Williams.
Listening to the President
By James Hogan
Two weeks, two concerts. Two soloists, two guest conductors, two atmospheres. The players on stage were the same, but many things changed this week as Rossen Milanov took the Charlotte Symphony podium as the final guest conductor of the season.
Milanov was quite a character. He appeared onstage sans typical tuxedo tails, preferring instead a sober outfit that seemed one white collar away from priestly garments. And his style...like clockwork. (I was going to say metronomical, but that would have been obvious.) Stiff, precise, formal, yet energetic, he pushed the orchestra through each selection; it wasn't until Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead" was finished that he turned around, his face betraying a deep emotional attachment that wasn't seen after other selections.
Good thing Milanov was, for the most part, reserved--guest pianist Andre Watts crowded the stage with his titanic undertaking of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. Intricate and filled with more trills and runs than a game of Chutes and Ladders, the concerto required a good deal of endurance. Watts laid the piece flat. Tapping his leather-soled shoes along at times, audibly singing along at others, this piano rock star was the highlight of the show.
This was the last performance under a guest conductor, and I regret that I was only able to see two of the eight--Christopher Warren-Green and Rossen Milanov. The programs at both concerts included a feedback form, asking the audience's feedback, but I wanted to extend to you an opportunity to share your thoughts.
Which conductor did you enjoy more? Which conductor might make a better fit for the Charlotte Symphony?
By Benjamin K. Roe
Music in the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went far beyond "We Shall Overcome." You can find the earliest evidence in his boyhood home on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, steps away from the celebrated Ebenezer Baptist Church, pastored by his father, Daddy King. Dr. King may have been the son of a preacher, but he was also the son of a choir director. When you walk in the King house, the first room you enter is an intimate front parlor, dominated by a battered old upright piano. This is the place where King's mother would lead the Ebenezer choir through weekly rehearsals, the place where his father first noted four-year-old Martin's fine, clear singing voice, and where he struggled through piano lessons.
Later, King would take his own place in the Ebenezer choir, join the prestigious Glee Club of Morehouse College, and marry a young New England Conservatory soprano named Coretta Scott. Forever after, it was the distinctly musical style of speaking that made Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. one of this century's greatest and most persuasive orators. It's no accident that his speeches and writings are filled with references to music.
It's because there is a vital musical core to Dr. King's life and message that NPR and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra began the" King Celebration" fifteen years ago. That first concert in 1994 was highlighted by composer Joseph Schwantner's poignant setting of King texts, New Morning for the World, and concluded with a moving chorus of "We Shall Overcome" as the audience at the Woodruff Arts Center joined hands and sang. Since 1997, A "King Celebration" has been staged in King Chapel at his alma mater, Morehouse College. In paying tribute to Dr. King, the annual concert also acknowledges the important but often-overlooked contributions of African-Americans to what we know as the "classical" music tradition.
As a national holiday, Dr. King's birthday is still new enough that we have been spared the car sales and mattress ads, and we are still looking for ways to observe the message and meaning of Dr. King's life. I can't think of a better way than celebrating it in music--music that inspired him and that he in turn inspired--on stage with a world-class ensemble, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, direct from his hometown.
Herbert von Karajan conducts the Berlin Philharmonic: Beethoven's Symphony No. 4. Be patient, it may take this video a moment to load. Keep an eye on the string players. They work together like synchronized swimmers.
by James Hogan
I just had to share this article from the New York Times. Remember all those wonderful Peanuts comic strips featuring Schroeder? He would be at his piano, and often in the comic strip panel, the reader would see a stanza of music, which served as a kind of wallpaper to the scene.
Turns out Charles Schulz was pretty serious about music. The music featured in the cartoons was actual, original music from classical scores, and frequently it would reflect the mood of the drawing. Several of the comic strips are on display at "Schulz's Beethoven: Schroeder's Muse" at the Charles Schulz Museum in New York, and visitors can view the strips and hear the music that was literally drawn into them. How brilliant!
Would love your comments about Charles Schulz, Peanuts, and music in cartoons/comics.
By James Hogan
The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra's performances this weekend came under the direction of Christopher Warren-Green, one of eight guest conductors who could replace departing music director Christof Perick. Given that my last post focused on a visiting conductor accused of poor conducting, I decided to watch Warren-Green during Friday night's CSO show.
Prior to the concert I asked my good friend Austin Greene, a conductor and teacher who lives in Durham, just what good conducting is. Can you qualify good conducting? Or is good conducting somewhat mystical, easily able to escape black and white terms?
Yes," Austin said, "there is a mystical energy behind conducting music. [Good] conducting is not about leading the musicians, it is about revealing the music. The conductor is the medium who summons spirits of thoughts past and encourages them to live again in the moment."
Director Christopher Warren-Green certainly summoned things to live in the moment. Throughout the first selection, a Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement of "Night on Bald Mountain," there were times Warren-Green seemed to reach out with his open hand and grab the music from the players. Like the witches characterized through the music, he appeared to be conjuring the musicians, at times galloping with the tempo, at times relaxing as the cauldron boiled back down.
That isn't to say Warren-Green lacked reserve, something accentuated during Haydn's Cello Concerto in D. Featuring the immaculate cellist Julie Albers (who, I must sheepishly admit, drew my attention from the podium a time or two), the orchestra was reduced to 20 players, and Warren-Green treated the piece as if it were a formal dance.
He cued musicians with his hand held outward, palm up, inviting them to the floor. At times, he seemed to bow stiffly to the score, as if he was greeting a courtly lady. And even with the whole ensemble playing, on at least two occasions he stepped back and stopped conducting, lowering his arms to watch for a moment, only to jump back in with a downbeat a few measures later.
"[Conducting] is the most priveledged position anyone could have," Mr. Warren-Green said in an interview last week with WDAV's Jennifer Foster. "It's the easiest thing in the world to do badly, and it's the hardest thing in the world to do well. But it certainly is the best job."
He certainly seems to have accomplished the hardest thing in the world.
For further information, I encourage you to check out Jennifer Foster's interview with Christopher Warren-Green.. Also, you might be interested to hear this interview with Gustavo Dudamel about good conducting. (about 3:15 into the interview) Were you at either of the CSO performances this weekend? Be sure to post your thoughts about the concert or the conducting in the comments section.
On this Sunday's edition of New Classics on WDAV, a new CD of music for piano and orchestra by Benjamin Britten is sampled. Britten wrote relatively few works that spotlight the piano. He once remarked that he regarded the piano basically as a "background instrument". In this interview, Leonard Bernstein gives a brief take on the complexities of Benjamin Britten.
by James Hogan
Soon this January we'll be inaugurating a new president, which got me thinking about democracy and classical music. Whacky, I know.
The New York Times ran an article in December about Gilbert E. Kaplan, a very well-to-do businessman and patron of the arts who has developed an acute passion for Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection"). He has had the fortune of conducting the piece with over 50 orchestras around the world, but his most recent performance, a December 8 concert with the New York Philharmonic, was subjected to harsh criticism by some of the Philharmonic's very own members.
"At best [Mr. Kaplan's] conducting is incompetent. At worst it's laughable," one musician is quoted as saying. And there are others disgruntled too, some by the suspicion that the only reason Mr. Kaplan was invited as a guest conductor was his significant monetary contribution to the Philharmonic.
I sheepishly admit that ever since my high school band director made me a drum major, it's been a far away dream of mine to conduct a symphony in concert. You know--gilded concert hall, tuxedo tails, the whole thing. This article, and the criticism of Mr. Kaplan, make that dream a little more distant. Does a common man belong on the podium? Is it silly to think that if anyone can be the President of the United States, anyone can conduct Mahler?
This brief documentary of cellist Han-Na Chang recording seven Vivaldi cello concertos with Christopher Warren-Green conducting captivated me. I went looking because I wanted to see Warren-Green, who's guest-conducting the Charlotte Symphony this weekend, in action. I found my eye wandering frequently to Han-Na Chang whose playing is mesmerizing and whose ability to express what's going through her mind while performing, extraordinary. Have a look: