Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium

Hi everyone-

My chat about Mahler 5 and all things OES with Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Morning Edition host Geoff Norcross is going to be broadcast tomorrow, Friday the 27th of February, at 6:51 Pacific time. Be sure to dial in to your local OPB affiliate or listen online at www.opbnews.org. It will be availbale as a download later in the day- we’ll post the link once it becomes available.

UPDATED-

The piece ran this morning and is now available on the OPB website to listen online or download as a podcast (the podcast option omits the written introduction which Geoff read live on the air). Thanks to Geoff Norcross and the OPB team for helping spread the word about the Best Damn Redneck Orchestra on Earth.

Last weekend Suzanne and I learned of the passing of a wonderful friend and musician, the bassist Kenneth Harper, who had been fighting a heroic battle with cancer for some time. Ken was only 45- the loving father of a beautiful son, Bennett, and husband of one of my oldest friends (and youth orchestra stand partner), the cellist Amy Harr. Assistant principal bassist of the Colorado Symphony, he was a tremendous, virtuoso bass player, but more than just that- a complete musician, inspired tango arranger, perceptive and dedicated teacher, and a wonderful chamber musician and colleague. A more agreeable companion for a cold beer or dinner and a chat you would never find. He was a warm, funny, intelligent guy, who was endlessly curious about life and music.

I’ve pasted the official obituary below. The family has set up a scholarship fund at Rice in Ken’s name, which is a fitting tribute for such a brilliant musician, but it I’d love it if readers would also take a moment to give something to melanoma research in Ken’s memory. Cancer sucks and it’s about damn time we found a cure.

I’ll be thinking of Ken, and also of Bennett and Amy this weekend during our Mahler concert.

Kenneth Harper-

Kenneth Spencer Harper, 45, of Denver, died at home February 21 after a courageous battle with melanoma. He was the assistant principal bassist of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.

Ken was born in 1963 in Camden, NJ to Godfrey (Skip) Walton Harper III and Jean Margaret Holt, both deceased. He graduated in 1981 from Moorestown High School, earned a Bachelor of Music degree from James Madison University in 1985 and a Master of Music degree from Rice University in 1988. He played with the Houston Ballet Orchestra, New Orleans Symphony, Houston Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra, Tanglewood Festival Orchestra and Solti Carnegie Hall Project before joining the Colorado Symphony in 1994. He was also a member and chief arranger for the tango band Extasis and was a devoted teacher of the double bass. Ken performed regularly with the Colorado Chamber Players and the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra.

He is survived by his wife, Amy Harr, son Bennett, mother Carolyn, brothers David, Douglas and James, sister-in-law Christine, sister Michelle, brother-in-law Joseph Bowling, sister Caroline, grandmother Caroline Cummons and numerous loving aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, in-laws and close friends.

Ken’s humor, depth, musicianship, intellect, leadership, integrity and companionship will be sorely missed. A celebration of his life with his favorite music will be held at 4 p.m. on March 23rd at Boettcher Concert Hall at 14th and Curtis in downtown Denver.

Contributions can be made in Ken’s memory to the Kenneth Harper Scholarship at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University, MS 532, P.O. Box 1892, Houston,TX 77251; the Melanoma Research Foundation at www.melanoma.org or 170 Township Line Road, Building B, Hillsborough, NJ 08844; or the Colorado Symphony Association, 1000 14th Street, Suite 15, Denver, CO 80202.

I just finished a brief interview with Geoff Norcross, the host of OPB’s Morning edition which will run on Friday this week. I’ll post exact broadcast and webcast details tomorrow.

As often happens, I feel like I have more to say after the interview than during it (although there was more than enough to fill a five minute slot or whatever he’s got in mind!).

One thing we did talk about was the makeup of the orchestra itself, which is, in my experience, unique. Most orchestras are quite homogenous institutions, made up of musicians of quite similar levels, backgrounds and ambitions. The OES is an orchestra of soloists, students and slackers, community players, concertmasters and conductors, businessmen with bassoons and broadcasters with b-flat clarinets, freelancers, amateurs, music professors and everything in between. It’s a mix born of necessity, opportunism, desperation, idealism and resignation. That mix makes it about the most interesting group I know to work with, but also the most demanding and challenging. I’ve been getting a lot of emails from conductor’s applying for my job asking about the band- “what level orchestra is it?” they all ask. You can’t rank an orchestra of 60 different levels of player in the same way you can one with about 4. Still, music is supposed to be a communal activity, and I think it is great that an orchestra exists where worlds can come together and people with different backgrounds and connections to music can work together, seriously and honestly, on substantial musical projects.

We also talked a bit about why I thought an orchestra in such a remote place had been able to grow to the point of playing Mahler. I primarily attributed our good fortunes to good luck in finding people when we needed them- whether musicians, board members or administrators, but even more to the orchestra creating a sense of event with every concert. As long as the orchestra has continued to deliver the goods, our audience and community have continued to let us take risks, and they’ve taken those risks with us.

I’m sticking by that answer- musical organizations thrive when they make music their focus, and it’s the energy of our concerts that drive this organizatio. However, I should have talked a bit more about the vital role our educational programs have in not only bringing young people to music, but to creating a wider sense of investment in the orchestra among the parents and friends of all the children who are involved in our various youth projects. Nothing inspires more loyalty from people than when you offer something of educational and developmental value to their children.

The thing I should have said is that one reason we’ve been able to do some fun and crazy things in Pendleton is that we’ve been, all things considered, relatively unafraid of failure. In that sense, Pendleton’s remoteness and the relatively small size of the organization in terms of dollars make the OES a great laboratory- as musicians we can take chances, both in terms of what we choose to do (repertoire), and how we choose to do it (a relatively go-for-it style of playing). I’ve been lucky so far- I’ve enjoyed all our concerts, but if one did go off the rails, it’s not as if the New York Times critical staff are going to hack us to pieces and name names. We know and understand that a performance in Pendleton, made under difficult budgetary and working conditions on a very tight rehearsal schedule will never have the sort of cool polish of a full time band (in that sense, we start each project with the knowledge that we’re, in a relatively happy way, doomed to fail), but it still has value- maybe a special kind of value that comes from all these musicians of such diverse backgrounds and skill-sets having to dig a little deeper to make things work. Classical music is a pretty pathetically risk-averse field. Our Mahler 5 will be many things, but I can guarantee it isn’t going to feel safe, tame or predictable. If you want classical music without a safety net, the Best Damn Redneck Orchestra on Earth is the place to go. It’s like classical music for people who go to NASCAR races to see the crashes- plenty of risk to go with lots of skill. Hopefully, the audience never need know how much we risked in the concert, but those of us who lived through the rehearsals know just what is at stake in every phrase.

Don’t think for a second I’m saying that I prefer this kind of duct-tape and willpower approach to music making to working with a stable and well supported ensemble under good rehearsal conditions. The millions that it takes to create those conditions at the world’s greatest orchestras are among the best spent dollars on the planet, and those are the organizations I most love working with, and the ones I want to work more with. Still, I think all orchestras bennefit from escaping their safe zone- Berlin Phil hornist Fergus MacWilliam once said that he still can’t believe how much the orchestra risks in every concert.  

However, somehow I can’t escape the feeling when I look back at my OES years that destiny insisted that in that place at that time, we had to make something musical happen. Whether there was an audience that was clamoring for Mahler and Strauss in Eastern Oregon was beside the point. Whether it made sense to embark on a journey like that hundreds of miles from the nearest conservatory was beside the point. I just had to be- in that place, at that time.

It’s been a messy process, but when I step back and look at it, it’s amazing how organic and inexorable the process of musical growth has been there, even if the price has been high (there’s a good reason we seem to burn through personnel managers so fast- it’s an impossible job there, and it’s certainly taken a lot out of me). I sometimes drive myself and my colleagues mad wishing we could bring order to the whole thing- that the project could have a more stable structure, and that we could somehow make the whole thing a bit less rag-tag, that…..

I could end this post with a “but what would the fun in that be,” but the grown-up truth of it is, it would be more fun if it were easier, but, like I said, we didn’t get to choose this moment and this place. It chose us.

Every community has its plusses and minuses, and Pendleton is no exception. Some of its strengths would be surprising were they not relatively well known- ie, that this town of 12,000 supports home-grown performances of Mahler symphonies. Its minuses- don’t think I’d report those here. What happens in Pendleton, stays in Pendleton…. Whatever its flaws and frustrations, one thing I love about Pendleton is that it is a place you can get things fixed.

I think this was first brought home to me during the great tail-coat episode some years ago. I had just gotten a new, very nicely tailored, tail coat for concerts, and some complete nincompoop let the face of an iron touch the shiny lapel, leaving an instant waffle-textured melt through on the surface.

I took that damn coat to tailors, seamstresses and old ladies in London, Cardiff, Chicago, Aspen, Seattle, Madison, Atlanta, Minneapolis and who knows where else. Everyone one of them told me to get a new coat. Somehow, in spite of this absolutely unanimous, multi-cultural and international consensus that the coat was not salvageable, I continued to try to find someone who could replace the destroyed lapel.

I was sharing this tale of woe one evening with our former board president, Richard, one day and he told me to take the ill-fated garment to a place called Tiny Tailor. I tried to explain that top people had told me that the coat couldn’t be fixed all over the US and UK, and that it seemed too much to hope for that I could get it fixed here in Pendleton. Richard gathered a few other Pendletonians around us, who all shared their stories of garments rescued from destruction by the nimble needlework of Tiny Tailor, so next time I came here, I threw the coat in my suitcase and went looking for the diminutive establishment.

I found the aptly-named venue (the entire shop is about the size of a kitchen table) about 200 yards from the Vert. I must have passed it 100 times. A very soft-spoken young women in what looked like a Menonite outfit took a look at the jacket and said she could have it ready for me in 5 days. Just like that. The repair was perfect, and she charged me about $20 for what must have been several hours painstaking work.

Like I said- Pendleton is a place you can get things fixed. Got an antique banjo that needs work- you call Vern. Whatever you have that’s broke (damaged items in Pendleton are more likely to be “broke” than “broken”), there’s probably some local character who can set it to rights.

Suzanne gave me a beautiful leather score bag for my birthday a couple of years ago, and the clasp has always been problematic- it tends to come loose. I’ve tried a few times to get it sorted, but really, Pendleton is the place to get things like this taken care of.

Now, if you’re in Pendleton and need something leather fixed, you want to go to Smith’s Boot Repair on Main. The sign says boots, but he does boots, belts, shoes, bags, cases, saddles- you name it. The proprietor, Claude, and I had been nodding acquaintances throughout my time here, but never had a conversation until one afternoon in the downtown parking lot when he drove his beautiful new pickup into the already mangled and beaten-up 35 year-old Ford pickup I had borrowed from my friend Dan. There’s not much one can do to negatively affect the appearance of a 35-year old truck, but Claude’s new model was quite banged up. He couldn’t have been nicer- he apologized and took responsibility, and there was no problem with Dan.  Dan was clear-  if anyone had to hit his old truck, it was best if it was Claude, who seems to be about the nicest guy in town.

Destiny pulled us towards a shared fate again a few years later when the fire in the local Eagles lodge burned down the symphony’s offices and the original incarnation of Smith’s Boot Repair. I always thought it was grimly funny when I would see the national coverage of that fire in Musical America or Playbill ending with some snide comment to the effect of “in addition to the symphony office, a boot repair shop was also destroyed.” It just seemed a little surreal to read that. Well, the Eagles have cashed their gazillion-dollar insurance settlement and rebuilt a palacial new lodge that has swallowed all the destroyed businesses, and Claude has moved up the road to the middle block of Main Street.

I took my score bag in this morning and showed him the offending latch. Claude is about as close as you’ll ever come to the archetype of a certain kind of soft-spoken cowboy. A man of few words. He took the latch and started rummaging around, looking for little mounting screws that he could use to re-attach it to the bag.

Finally, he gave up. “I could look all day for the right screw here and never find it- you watch the shop, and I’ll go next door to Zimmerman’s Hardware and just buy some screws.”

With that, he disappeared out the door, leaving me as the sole occupant of his shop. I looked around at the new and used boots on the shelves. I’ve always meant to buy a pair of proper cowboy boots as a memento of my time here, but they’re an expensive memento, and the last 8 years have not been the time for an American to dress like a cowboy in the UK. Maybe now is the time?  There was a pegboard with various leather oils and creams, shoelaces and strips of rawhide. A couple of lassos. Claude’s checkbook was out on the counter. For a moment, I thought that providence was teaching me a lesson about looking at life from a more relaxed perspective.

Finally, I sat down in a nearby chair and opened my Mahler score. He was gone about 20 minutes- it turns out those screws are a funny size (figures). In the meantime, I just sat there, peacefully dissecting the 2^nd movement of Mahler 5 by myself in a boot shop on Main Street, surrounded by the smells of new leather and old oils, thinking that it’s probably been a long time since Leonard Slatkin got to study a score in such unique surroundings.

I started my Monday morning with an appearance on Coffee Hour hear on the local radio station. You never know if you’ll be sharing the show with 10 other guest and get about 30 seconds to plug your event, or if you’re filling the entire time. Today it was the latter. Tom, the host, has always done an excellent job- I’ll miss working with him.

One of my goals for this blog was to use it as a bridge for audience building. As I left the radio station, it occurred to me that if a possible new audience member had looked up my blog after the radio show, that a twelve-hundred word essay on tempo could be a little intimidating. A wise friend with a good blog (also a conductor) said he tried to keep his posts “pithy” but that sometimes we all have to “geek out” a little bit. I’ve come to understand that Vftp is not the place for large scale audience outreach- instead, I should be blogging through the symphony’s own website as part of a coordinated effort to reach out to new listeners.

However, I’ve come to think that Seasick Steve is right.  

I saw a BBC special about him the other day, and he said that his fame, which came in his 60’s, was a complete surprise to him. He’d been basically doing the same kind of music for 45 years- the only difference was that just before he hit the big time, he’d started doing exactly what he wanted to do, and not trying to please people any more. “I wish someone had told me that a long time ago.” Posts like yesterdays can come off as pompous, boring, needlessly long-winded. There are a lot of them here in the archives. However, usually anytime I’ve just sort of sat down and written what’s on my mind, those posts seem to generate the most conversation. If I write what I would want to read, people seem to like it.

Likewise, as a conductor and music director, whenever I’ve followed the Seasick Steve model and just programmed or rehearsed or conducted exactly as I wanted to, I’ve had the best musical results, the best audience response, the happiest musicians. Maybe you can’t always choose to do just what you want to, but you can always do things as honestly as possible. Very young conductors should probably ignore everything I’ve just written- until your experience and depth match your ambition, it’s better to take a more humble approach. I guess it’s all a matter of knowing when you’re ready to say “fuck it” and do things your own way.

The problem for orchestras is that we’re supposed give the people what they want- we’re supposed to serve the community. We do market research and audience questionnaires. We set up artistic advisory committees. All of these can help a conductor do their job better, but focus groups don’t make art, and I think that’s still what audiences want. However the project came about- you’ve got to take ownership of it.

I guess that’s all a long way of saying that there will probably more long, pompous, boring blog posts to come here at Vftp.

Anyway- after the radio show, we recorded a short commercial for the concert. “Hi- this is Ken Woods from the Oregon East Symphony, inviting you to heed the trumpet’s call,” is how it starts, with me talking over the opening of the symphony. I do our commercials when I’m able to, otherwise our ED or a board member does them. Mine tend to be a bit weirder, I think.

Tonight, I’m rehearsing the OES Chorale for our Mozart Requiem concert in April. They rehearse weekly, but there are only a few rehearsals left because of spring break.  It’s funny hopping between programs- I think I have five concerts with rehearsals overlapping each other right now, when all I want to do is focus on the Mahler. It’s actually a pretty nice problem to have.

“The Scherzo is a damnable movement. It will have a long history of suffering! Conductors will take it too fast for fifty years, and audiences—Oh heavens—what sort of faces will they pull at this chaos…..”

(Gustav Mahler, speaking of his 5^th Symphony before the 1904 premiere. )

This quote of Mahler’s often appears in program notes- usually citied as a manifestation of his insecurity and megalomania, and also as a measure of the Herculean difficulty of the piece. But what of the specific musical concern he cites- that conductors will take the Scherzo “too fast for fifty years?”

Interestingly, for all that one hardly ever reads a review of a performance of the 5^th that doesn’t include a timing for the Adagietto (“the maestro brought the Adagietto in at a worthy 8’ 20’’…” or “the maestro wallowed his way to a lugubrious 10’ 5’’…” are typical of the writing on that movement), I’ve hardly ever seen a conductor taken to task for taking the Scherzo too fast. I think this is mostly because we have a very vague idea of what Mahler meant by “too fast” when he wrote about this movement.

In fact, I’d say 90% of the performances of the Scherzo take the opening tempo in a comfortable “tempo di valse,” and that it does sound great at that tempo. A small minority, including Bernstein and Barshai, take it a bit slower, and in three instead of one. However, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single performance that went any faster than the 90% of conductors who treat the movement as a waltz.

So, was Mahler needlessly worried? Was he envisioning some sort of crazed, keystone-cops whirling dervish prestissimo that not even 100 years of other conductors were stupid enough to try?

Well- although many commentators refer to the Scherzo as a waltz, Mahler certainly doesn’t indicate Tempo di Valse or anything of the sort. Kraftig (“strongly” or “vigorously”). Nicht zu schnell (“not too fast”), and then just five bars in the movement- Nicht eilen (“unhurried”). The next tempo marking at bar 60? Nicht eilen, again! How about the next one? Bar 108- Nicht eilen, again!!! It’s not until 120 bars into the piece that Mahler tells us to get a move on “Wider flessender” or “again more flowing.”

In fact, it seems clear to me (and Donald Mitchell and Henry Louis de la Grange both seem to agree) that this opening section is not a waltz, but a Landler. The Landler, being a country dance, is slower than the waltz, and is felt in “three,” not “one.” If it is a Landler, and 90 % of my colleagues are conducting it as a waltz, then I think Mahler’s 50 year prediction was wildly optimistic- it’s 105 years since the premiere, and conductors are still taking it too fast.

Of course, the Scherzo does include a wildly seductive and sophisticated waltz- first heard as a slow waltz at fig. 6. This music eventually forms the basis of the wildly Dionysian climax of the entire movement. It’s a deconstruction of fin de siecle Vienna even more decadent than Ravel’s in La Valse. But that is all to come when the movement begins….

Surprisingly, one reason I think 90% of conductors take the opening in a waltz tempo is that it feels and sounds more elegant and natural than the slower version. In three, the music can sound frustratingly controlled, even awkward. You could easily make a case that the waltz tempo sounds and feels more pleasing and comfortable to the vast majority of musicians and listeners.

So is there ever a time when we intentionally adopt a performance approach that is not the most pleasing and ingratiating? Donald Mitchell * and and Constantin Floros may have also uncovered a key piece of evidence in understanding Mahler’s intentions with regard to tempo in the Scherzo. It turns out that both Richard Specht, who published the first study of Mahler in 1905, and Bruno Walter ** called attention to the influence of Goethe’s poem, “An Schwager Kronos” (“To Brother Time, Coachman”) on this movement. Walter went so far as to state that the entire Scherzo grew out of Goethe’s poem.

Take the opening stanza of the poem-

“Hurry on, Time, at a rattling trot!

The road runs downhill,

Your dawdling makes things swim before my eyes”

The writer describes not the “hurrying on” of time, but its “rattling trot.” It’s clear that things are very “nicht eilen,” to the annoyance of the narrator. If the opening of the Scherzo refers to the opening of the poem (something we can never know with certainty), it’s not supposed to sound breezy, natural, elegant and flowing. It’s supposed to test our patience—“your dawdling makes things swim before my eyes.”

Anyway, whether your persuaded by the poem or by the stylistic evidence of the type of dance we’re dealing with, I think the lesson is you can’t always go by what sounds or feels “best” because music isn’t always supposed to please and make us comfortable. Especially in the context of this symphony- the unease and impatience depicted in the opening of the poem seem a more logical fit with the torments and destruction of Part I, and a simple, carefree waltz.

What else does the poem tell us about this movement? Well, I can’t help but be reminded of the Alphorn calls at figure 10 when I read this stanza-

“High, wide and glorious the prospect of life rings us round.

The eternal spirit soars from peak to peak,

Full of intimations of eternal life.”

And then there is that sexy slow waltz- if our narrator has been trying to drive Brother Time on his way, this seems a welcome diversion…

“A shadowy doorway beckons you aside

Across the threshold of the girl’s house,

And her eyes promise refreshment….Take comfort! For me too, lass, that sparkling draught

That fresh and healthy look”

The sensuality of Goethe’s imagery matches so well with the decadence of the waltz theme, and the flirty, coquettish “schüchtern” oboe solo.

An then, there’s the answer to why the whole movement has, at it’s heart, a horn solo, when the poet implores Brother Time, as they descend, “blind and reeling through the dark gates of Hell”-

“Blow your horn, brother, clatter on at a noisy trot.

Let Orcus know we are coming,

so that mine host will be there at the door to welcome us.”

* Mitchell’s excellent essay on Mahler 5 is not exactly an easy read, but it is well worth the effort. However, there is one baffling and humongous error. On page 296 of the Mahler Companion in which the essay appears he says of the coda of the 2^nd movement– “The only constant rhythmic feature is the unvaried triplet figuration of the divided first violins, a conflation of fourths, for which Mahler indicates artificial harmonics….” There are no fourths here- the 1sts have only 2 pitches, a natural and c-natural. The diamond shaped notes a fourth above the written pitch indicate to the player where they should lightly place their fourth fingers to achieve the artificial harmonic, which sounds 2 octaves above the written pitch. I don’t want to pick a fight with one of my favorite writers on one of my favorite composers, but I know some of my friends have been reading the Mitchell in preparation for this concert, and his mistake, a basic one but easy enough for a non-performer to make, completely confuses the question of what the harmony is in this passage. It is a diadic harmony- just these two notes, a and c. The sparseness of this harmony is key to the spooky mood of the coda, but there is a larger reason for keeping the harmony diadic.  Both the violin triplets and all the wind and harp interjections are limited to these two pitches, while the melodic material attempts to resolve the conflict between f and e which has gone on throughout the movement. It’s only with the tuba’s last note that e is established as the final point of stability in forming the tonic triad.

**  Interestingly, Bruno Walter’s recording of the Scherzo is one of the fastest and strangest on record. His basic tempo is on the fast side of a waltz tempo, but far worse, he stays in his Hauptempo for the slow waltz at fig. 6 and the parallel places. When writers call attention to his 7’ Adagietto, they seem to forget that his Scherzo was 2 minutes faster than any of Mahler’s performances of it. Walter’s performances of Mahler are often wonderful and are important to know, but where there is a divergence between Mahler’s text and Walter’s performance, I think it’s easy to know what must be regarded as the authority.

Finally- A note about the Landler tempo. If one goes even one notch too slow in this opening, the music simple collapses. Waltz tempo is safe but possibly wrong- the margin for error in finding the right landler tempo is tiny.

An Schwager Kronos
“To Brother Time the Coachman”
–by Goethe
translation by Norma Deane and Celia Larner
 “Hurry on, Time, at a rattling trot!
The road runs downhill,
Your dawdling makes things swim before my eyes.
On at a brisk pace, over stick and stone,
Stumbling headlong into life!
Now once more toiling uphill, out of breath—
Up then, no slacking, upward striving and hoping …….
High, wide and glorious the prospect of life rings us round.
The eternal spirit soars from peak to peak,
Full of intimations of eternal life.
A shadowy doorway beckons you aside
Across the threshold of the girl’s house,
And her eyes promise refreshment.
Take comfort! For me too, lass, that sparkling draught
That fresh and healthy look.
Down then, faster down!
See, the sun sinks. Before it sets,
before the marsh-mist envelopes mein my old age, wigh tootless gnashing jaws and tottering limbs
Snatch me, drunk with the sun’s last ray,
a sea of fire boiling up before my eyes,
blind and reeling through the dark gates of Hell.
Blow your horn, brother, clatter on at a noisy trot.
Let Orcus know we are coming,
so that mine host will be there at the door to welcome us.”

The day, as a professional event, almost didn’t happen.

Between rehearsal Thursday evening and lunch Friday afternoon, I went from “down” with the bug to “down, out and defeated” by the same bug. It’s amazing how debilitating something can be that, in our day of antibiotics, is really just a passing inconvenience. Dizzy, nauseous, ear pain and the sore throat of the century. Fortunately providence intervened in the form of a physician friend I ran into just after that fateful Friday lunch who arranged some antibiotics and mega-decongestants for me. Between lunch Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, I went from down, out and defeated by the bug to just plain old down. Bad can seem pretty good when you’ve gotten used to terrible!

“Down” is not “down, out and defeated,” but I still might have taken the day off had it been any other orchestra but the OES Preparatory Orchestra. This weekend meant a lot to me- I had been their primary conductor for many years, but this year, with me in Pendleton a bit less than previous years, we turned the preparatory orchestra over to my assistant, Bruce. Given that I couldn’t be here between early October and late February, there was no other fair solution, but I have missed the kids. Watching this group, which we started from scratch a few years back, grow into a vibrant ensemble of creative and attentive young musicians has been one of the highlights of my time here.

So- it was out of bed and off to work. The antibiotics had helped, but I had to bear in mind my limitations. With this bug, talking leads to coughing, and coughing is where this bug gets nasty. I would have to be a man of few words.

Our project this weekend was Haydn Symphony no. 94- the “Surprise.” I had two goals in mind- to prepare the piece to performance level over the course of one weekend, and, in doing so, to also try to give the students a sense of what makes Haydn, Haydn….

Once we started the rehearsal, I saw that in order to keep the cough at bay, it was going to be hard, if not impossible, to talk long enough to achieve my second goal. It was all I could do to prepare the piece, and if anything, to work with the students more as professionals. It was a very business-like morning.

To my pleasant surprise, things improved quickly- maybe more quickly than if I’d stuck to my original plan. I couldn’t help but think it was a nice reflection on our years of work together that we could set aside all the teacher-isms and youth-orch rehearsal gimmicks and just, with a minimum of chat, put together a sophisticated piece of music.

However, as the long day moved from morning to afternoon to early evening, I finally saw the price of my stingy way with words. As we started in with the 3^rd movement, one of the fiddle players exclaimed her relief at not playing the 2^nd. “The theme of that movement is so stupid,” she said.

“Aha!” I replied, “that’s exactly the point! The theme is supposed to be simple, stupid and predictable. Even pompous! He wants to create a degree of complacency- get us thinking we know what is going to happen next, and then to destroy that and to keep us off-balance and unsure of what’s coming next for the rest of the movement. That’s the humor- taking this pompous melody and dissecting it, dismantling it, and then, just when we expect him to do something else crazy, returning to it in its simple original form.”

When we got finally stuck in to the second movement I was reminded that there fundamental differences between working with pros, who (usually!) know the repertoire and understand why it’s important, funny, moving or interesting, and students, who, while able to play it well, may not realize that Haydn is not only in on the joke, he is 10 jokes ahead of them. It was better for our discussion. Just that little discussion on the nature of Haydn’s humor (which so few professional musicians get) had made a huge difference in the way the played the piece- articulations cleaned themselves out, the rhythmic profile was tighter, and, most importantly, they were smiling and enjoying it.

Hopefully, I found enough voice between coughs to put across a bit more of what makes this piece so witty, modern, sophisticated and inspiring, but we can cover more ground tomorrow.

After a run-through to see where we are, I crawled home, and tucked myself under a blanket and pulled out my Mahler score. In the end, I manage almost 3 ½ hours of study- hopefully I haven’t overdone it and set myself back. Hopefully, a good night’s sleep and another dose of my Z-pack and I’ll be well on my way to wellness.

And that was a day here in Pendleton.

Well, in just a few hours, I’ll be in Pendleton for our first rehearsal for this concert cycle. Like many rural orchestras, we have a couple of rehearsals with just our local core musicians, then bring in the rest of the orchestra for the weekend of the concert. In a piece like Mahler 5, that system has the potential to create some funny results.

Conductors often like to have an opening gambit for a first rehearsal- my opening gambit is usually to play the piece, and if there is any time left over, to rehearse what needs rehearsing most urgently, or to focus on some sections that will give everyone an idea of the style of the work. Not much of a gambit, I suppose. Others have fancier systems, often involving lots of talking, usually condescending talking…..

One of the worst, or at least worst received, opening gambits I ever saw was at the first rehearsal for a performance of Mahler 5 with a very, very good conservatory level orchestra. The gentleman conducting the concert apparently looked at the score the night before the first rehearsal and did what many conductors do with this piece- he saw all that counterpoint and virtuoso writing and panicked. He freaked. He lost it.

Imagine then, what happened at that first rehearsal. It’s Mahler 5- for once, even the slackers are in their seats early. They’ve looked at their parts. All the wind players have been working on their parts with their teachers. The brass faculty have looked at it in class. The horns and trumpets had special auditions for the solo parts. Everyone’s been listening to recordings, and arguing over which one is the best. Some bright guy in the bassoon section is telling everyone that Finzi was a better composer than Mahler and loudly wondering why are they all so excited about this piece of junk.

Then the maestro said these fateful words…. “Ah, ladies and gentlemen. This is a very difficult piece. I don’t know- I think maybe it is a little too hard for us. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s better if we switch to Tchaikovsky or something. Anyway- I guess there’s no harm in reading it once. Don’t feel bad if it’s too hard.”

What was worse was that he meant this. Had it just been a reverse psychology gambit to get them fired up, I would say it was unnecessary and ill-advised, but it’s a gambit, fair enough. But to share your own actual doubts with the orchestra?!?!?!?!?!? To not have the confidence that you can solve the problems that are going to come up?!?!?!?!?!

One of the cardinal jobs of any leader is to provide a roadmap for making the difficult possible. Your job is not to spread the fear of failure, but to soak it up like a sponge, and rinse it out in the kitchen sink of your soul. When I see a leader, whether it is a conductor, executive director or board president in our business, or leaders in any field, start explaining to their colleagues all the ways things could, and probably will, go wrong, I often feel a rising sense of despair (which I keep to myself).

There’s a job to be done- the leader’s job is to understand all the challenges, risks and difficulties, then to figure out how those can be overcome, and then to be able to articulate that vision of success to his or her team.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this very blog is actually my version of a pep talk to the orchestra on the first day of rehearsals- a bit of the old reverse psychology double bluff gambit. Actually, I’ve felt very serene all along about the musicians’ ability to get to grips with this program as long as we as an organization give them the resources they need to get the job done. But I always like to remember that failed gambit before I start a new project as a caution to myself that my worry is my problem, not theirs.

So what did happen at that first rehearsal all those years ago? Predictably, the orchestra played their asses off, the concert was very good, but the conductor never recovered his street cred in their eyes. It takes serious balls to sit onstage and play the horn solo in Mahler 5. I think the player has every right to expect the same kind of courage and grace under pressure from the conductor. We all live not only with the possibility of failure, but with the certainty of it. Sooner or later, we all miss something, or screw something up and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

I think it is somehow more empowering and more dignified to own your failures. This mindset of “it may be too hard for us,” or “we don’t know how much we’re going to raise this year,” is a way of distancing yourself from responsibility for your own failings. If a piece turns out to be harder than you thought, practice more. If you screw it up, smile, take it on the chin, be dignified at the gig (don’t share your disappointment with the other musicians or the audience), then go home and cry, exercise, drink or do whatever you need to do to get over it. Same thing with administrative challenges- if a project is not turning out how you expected, work harder, change your tactics, get help, but don’t start by saying it may not be possible and it’s not your fault if it isn’t. Once that starts, it’s only pure luck if you’re successful. Being in a leadership position, or being an artist, or just being an empowered human being means accepting that it is your fault.

I actually think we in the artsy-fartsy sector could live from your colleagues in elite sports, half of whom fail every time they go to work. Being in the local symphony and reading your own press, you can feel like you’re undefeated every season, and if you’re running a deficit or not playing well, it’s not your fault- it’s tough times. I think most athletes are pretty good at taking on the chin when they lose and letting go of things they really can’t do anything about, like injuries. But the greatest, like my man Favre, seem to be able to overcome injuries that keep others on the sidelines. That’s leadership- taking a situation where failure would have been a forgivable outcome because the circumstances were challenging and taking control of your own destiny. You might still fail, but failure is fine (at least, it’s only temporary) as long as you own it. If you don’t own your failures, why should you get credit for your successes? That Mahler 5 so long ago was a success, but the conductor didn’t own it at all- it belonged to the musicians who took control of the situation and refused to accept failure.

I’m in the midst of packing for a busy trip to Oregon, but I really wanted to share a couple of thoughts about our concert this past weekend with Lancashire Chamber Orchestra. It was great to see the hall so packed!

The orchestra has been improving consistently since I met them, thanks to a lot of hard work from everyone there. It seems like there was a big jump in everything about the time we moved into our new hall 18 months ago, but between the Gal concert in October and this one, I think we’ve reached a new level. Somehow, we’re reaching a new audience and playing better- an exciting combination!

I wanted to talk a bit about my own experience of the music on this concert. One of the nice things about having been at this for a little while is that one gradually does start to feel like you already have a foundation to build on in terms of your repertoire. It’s been a long time since I did a concert entirely of pieces that I was looking at for the first time, although there is usually something new on every concert. Saturday night was all new repertoire, and not only pieces I hadn’t conducted before- these were works that, while I may have heard them, I’d never played any of them in my cello days, nor covered them, nor, to be honest, really thought too much about them. I went in with an open mind.

I came away thinking that was a lucky place to be, and remembering that the coolest thing about being a musician is the music you get to play, and discovering a new piece, just like (forgive the cliché) falling in love, is hard to beat.

The Brahms D major Serenade is probably done once for every 50 performances of one of the symphonies. Ask why and people will probably tell you it’s too long. I was asked once to conduct it on my first concert as a guest with a somewhat dodgy (at that time) orchestra, and said it was way too hard for them, but I said the same thing about the symphonies. Why?

I’m sure there’s a reason, but I doubt it’s a good one. I was having a beer with composer Edward Gregson after our rehearsal of his trombone concerto the other day, and he showed me his score- the original, hand-written ink copy. On the title page, there was a large blot of white-out under the end of the word ‘Concerto.” It seems that when Eddie wrote the piece, he called it a Concertino, not a Concerto. After all, it’s only 18 minutes long and written for chamber orchestra. When he showed it to his publisher, the chap explained that getting a trombone concerto performed is challenging, but that getting a trombone concertino performed is impossible. They grabbed the whiteout and changed it then and there in the publishers office, the piece has been performed dozens if not hundreds of times.

“Concertino” might have been a more accurate description, but “Concerto” was a better title. Brahms the moralist would never have called the Serenade a Symphony, but we could- I bet if I recorded it as “Symphony no. 0 in Six Movements” it would outsell every Serenade recording ever made combined, even if I made absolutely clear it’s the same work, not a note changed. Why fight it? The world is, in some ways, a dumb place. People like symphonies, they’re not so sure about serenades. Also, people listen to serenades to try and figure out why it isn’t a symphony- they’re looking for the bits that are less serious, less taut, less integrated or less polished.

Anyway- I fell head over heels for the piece. The first movement is a wonderful take on Beethoven 6 with all those rustic fifths, the second foreshadows my favorite of the Haydn Variations, but it’s the Adagio which makes the piece for me. I know I just did the piece so I’m a little biased, but I think it’s even better than the slow movements of the symphonies. It’s a true, epic Adagio- worthy of Bruckner even, and full of the spirit of Schubert. The fourth movement is charming- it’s the only real “serenade” music in the piece, the following scherzo has hilarious shout-outs to the Scherzo of Beethoven 5 and The Messiah, and the Finale is fab. It’s proper music of the country (as opposed to the excreble “country music”), earthy, rough and visceral.  Brahms manages to conjure reminiscences of the earlier movements, bringing cohesion and closure to his longest orchestral work.

The first half- Haydn 72 and the 2^nd Shostakovich Piano Concerto was just as rewarding. Haydn we expect to be funny (although many people don’t know that Haydn was always the joker but never the fool), but the Shostakovich is one of his funniest pieces. It’s about his only major work that begins and ends happy! If you don’t know Haydn 72, you must. It’s like a slightly more deranged version of the more famous “Horn Call” symphony. We sat the horns antiphonally and they played their guts out. After that, you get insane virtuoso solos for concertmaster, principal cellist, principal flute, principal double bass, sextet of oboe and horns with bassoon continuo, et all… It’s a wonderfully perverse  take on the idea of a symphony- why didn’t he call it a serenade instead, since that seems a more honest description of the piece?

Because Haydn was smarter than Brahms. 

Daniel Browell did a fine job on the concerto- I’m so fond of, and convinced by, Shostakovich’s own performances of the concertos that I’m a somewhat biased listener, but he put forth a quite convincing view of the piece. Lovely slow movement.

On March 2nd, you’ll be able to order all 104 Haydn Symphonies in 320 bit Mp3 format for about 22 pounds or $34 bucks….

Genre: Orchestral Artist(s): Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra Conductor(s): Adam Fischer Expected Release Date: 2nd March 2009 

More Details on Haydn – Complete Symphonies (The Esterhazy Recordings) “The performances by Adam Fischer and his Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra have the edge over Dorati and his band of Hungarian exiles. Fischer’s body of strings is appreciably smaller, and his violin and cello soloists sweeter toned, surer in their intonation and more imaginative in their phrasing. In the slow movements the greater refinement of Fischer’s soloists and his rather lighter touch are invariably more persuasive.” – Gramophone“The sound is at once warmly atmospheric and intimate, with high contrasts of dynamic and texture. Continuing to use modern, not period instruments, but with limited string vibrato and Viennese oboes and horns standing out distinctively, these are recordings to challenge the longtime supremacy of Dorati’s pioneering Decca set. This release completes the Nimbus Haydn Symphony Cycle; fourteen years in the making and comprising 32 compact discs. It is the first Haydn cycle to be recorded in digital sound specifically for CD.” – The Penguin GuidePlease note: this release is in MP3 format at 320 kbps. Files can be transferred directly to an ipod or MP3 player or the discs can be played on a computer, most DVD players or the latest generation of in-car players.

The set includes a 19,000 word comprehensive analysis on the Symphonies and a 6,000 word article on making the recordings, with an overview of the project from the conductor Adam Fisher. 

 

 

No much money to find out what you’ve been missing all your life.

UPDATE- Taking my own lesson, I have changed the title of this post from the forgettable “LCO Wrap-up” to the current one. That may also make me smarter than Brahms…..

There was a great piece in the Feb 15 New York Times on the recent drama surrounding a proposed $50 million increase to the National Endowment for the Arts in the stimulus package. In the end, the Coburn Amendment, which I discussed here and here a few days ago, passed overwhelmingly 73-24. From this, we have to conclude there are a lot of ignorant buffoons on both sides of the aisle.

Fortunately, things turned around in conference, thanks in part to the leadership of Louise Slaughter-

“We had the facts on our side,” said Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a New York Democrat who is co-chairwoman of the Congressional Arts Caucus. “If we’re trying to stimulate the economy, and get money into the Treasury, nothing does that better than art.”

I’m sending a thank-you email to Congresswoman Slaughter, and you should too. I’m also going to find out if my senators voted for or against the Coburn amendment, and write them as appropriate. If we don’t stand up for good economics as well as good music, who will?

Corrente has a great piece on the politics of Coburn, from which I take this list of the Dems who supported this

None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made
available by this Act may be used for any casino or other
gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swim-
ming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater,
art center, and highway beautification project.

Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Begich (D-AK), Yea
Bennet (D-CO), Yea
Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
Brown (D-OH), Yea
Byrd (D-WV), Yea
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Cardin (D-MD), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Casey (D-PA), Yea
Conrad (D-ND), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Feingold (D-WI), Yea
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Johnson (D-SD), Yea
Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
Merkley (D-OR), Yea
Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea
Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Schumer (D-NY), Yea
Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Tester (D-MT), Yea
Udall (D-CO), Yea
Udall (D-NM), Yea
Warner (D-VA),

I’m not surprised by the likes of Nelson, Schumer and Feinstein, but for Wisconsin to g 0-fo-2….. Russ- what happened?!?!?!?

As a follow-up to my post on the volume level of the last note of the first movement of Mahler 5, I wanted to come back to the obvious parallel with the last note of the 2^nd movement. The note in question is a single eighth-note a-natural on the timpani, marked “solo,” “well-tuned,” accent (>) and sforzando (sf). There is no dynamic over this note- the last dynamic in the timpani is 2 before 33, just before the beginning of the last section (about a minute of music back), which is pp.

This note is obviously intended as a link with the pizzicato at the end of the first movement- it almost is a pizzicato, after all. Mahler precedes it with two pizzicato notes in the cellos and basses and it is the conclusion of the same thematic cell as the two notes that precede it.

Kubik tells us that this note had a similar evolution of notation to that of the last note of the first movement-

“In the course of time the dynamic indication became louder and louder: in Aut, StV and EA-Stp without exception pp, Mahler already altered it to p plus accent in W-Stp; in W-Dp he added “nicht zu schwach” {“not too weak”}; St1 has p plus accent, added here in the hand of a player; in St2 sf is finally found in the handwriting of a copyist. — Mahler appears to have had the idea of a delicately effected stroke, which must nevertheless be well audible and which therefore from the point of view of playing technique must not be executed too gently.”

St2 is the set of parts revised by Mahler while in New York in 1910-1

Again, he has first changed pp to p, added a >, then eventually removed any indication of a soft dynamic, and instead simply marked sf and >.

However, while performers have been aware of the sf at the end of the first movement for many years, few will have seen this one. The Dover (old-Peters) has the original pp, the Ratz p and >. This publishing history would explain why you and I have never heard a parallel to the 1st mvt pizz thwack with a THWACK on the timps. The sf in the 2^nd mvt only came into the published parts and score in 2004. If the 1^st mvt thwack is played louder than Mahler wanted it (which I’m not sure we know), it’s because people have misinterpreted his sf, but there’s been no sf in the 2^nd before, so one usually has the opposite problem.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve simply not heard that note at all- sometimes the poor timpanist tries to play so softly, she or he misses the drum altogether. Other times, it’s just too anonymous to project.

Wouldn’t it be funny if the publication of this new edition ends up inverting the tradition of 1^st mvt thwack, 2^nd mvt inaudible into 1^st mvt inaudible, 2^nd mvt THWACK? Imagine telling a veteran timpanist that the note he’s been missing the drum trying to play pp for 30 years should really be like a gunshot! “I’ve been playing this piece for 30 years, and no conductor has ever suggested something so absurd….”

Anyway, It seems even more absurd to average a post-per-note in writing about Mahler symphonies, since there are LOTS of notes. Still, what is one to conclude from this new information in Kubik? It seems reasonable to infer that, since we now know that both movements with sforzandos, perhaps they should be similar in volume? However, the 2^nd movement ends sf and >, while the 1^st ends only sf. That bit of text seems to argue for the 2^nd movement being louder, something one might never have heard or considered even as a possibility.

And, of course, there is one more difference- ‘gut stimmen’ or “well tuned” in the 2^nd movement. Surely Mahler wants everyone to play “gut stimmen” all the time?

Remember Mengelberg’s marking of “dof” or “dull” for the first movement?

In fact, the pizz at the end of the 1^st mvt is another sort of mirror to the timp note at the end of the 2^nd. In the 2^nd mvt, the timpani is completing a thought begun in the strings. In the 1^st, the strings are completely an idea begun in the percussion- the bass drum roll that precedes it, which is itself a completion or continuation of the timp rolls a few bars earlier. This is interesting- Mahler goes from a pitched percussion instrument (timps) to a non-pitched one (bass drum), to a pizzicato, all in the same frequency range. If “dof” has any validity, perhaps it is to say that Mahler wants this pizz heard as a percussive event more than a tonal one- Mahler’s own playing of this passage on the piano roll sounds like this. He plays the note so softly and dryly that one almost can’t hear the pitch.

On the other hand, “gut stimmen” seems to be telling the timpanist not only to tune his damn drum, but that that pitch has special significance? Does it?

In fact, it does. The Fifth has an interesting key structure- it begins in C # minor, the 2^nd mvt is in A minor, Scherzo in D major, Adagietto in F major and Finale in D major. Symphonies usually begin and end in the same key, but this “progressive tonality” is the most quintessentially Mahlerian device you can imagine. Where Beethoven might have expressed transformation by beginning a symphony in, say, a minor key and ending in the major (like his 5^th and 9^th symphonies), Mahler express a similar transformation by beginning in minor and ending in the major, but up a step- sort of a heightened version of what Beethoven did with mode.

Anyway, in a symphony that is no so much “in C# minor” as “from C # minor and to D major” the A minor of this 2^nd movement plays a special roll. In particular, the a-natural which ends the 2^nd movement can be read as the dominant of the D major which opens the Scherzo.

Likewise, the a-natural which ends the Adagietto in the first violins is the third of the F major chord which ends that movement. When the Finale begins (the two movements are to be played without pause), it is again an a-natural. That “gut stimmen” seems to be Mahler’s way of warning us that the note in question has a special structural function- you could even see at as the pivot point of the entire symphony. A-natural in that moment goes from being the tonic of stormy A minor (the key of Mahler’s “Tragic” 6^th, a work in similar mood to the 2^nd movement of the 5^th) to being the dominant of hopeful, radiant D major, but then away again. In the Adagietto it takes us into F major. It seems that all of the other keys in this symphony have symbolic meaning, and can be tied to references in other canonic works. Finding out why the Adagietto is in F major (the key of Beethoven’s first and last quartets as well as the Pastoral- I’m at a bit of a loss to think of a similarly magical utterance in F major in any other piece) might well be the key to understanding the whole symphony. In any case, it is again the a-natural which is the pivot that takes us finally and definitively into D major- the key of the Finale of Beethoven 9, Haydn’s last symphony, Figaro, Brahms 2, Mahler 1…..

“How many scores of Mahler 5 do you own?” came the beleaugered inquirey from one who knows the ins and outs of our library budget here at Vftp International Headquarters.

The reluctant answer is “over four.” I’ve got the Dover (useless for performance, but interesting for comparison as it is almost the earliest version of the symphony, without most of Mahler’s later changes), a pocket score of the Erwin Ratz edition from 1962, the octavo score of the 1999 printing of that same score corrected and updated by Fussl, and am now working from the nearly brand-new critical edition edited by Rheinhold Kubik. On top of these, I have reductions for piano and two-pianos and a score of just the Adagietto. So, over four….

There are many interesting differences between the Kubik and the Fussl editions, but the most dramatic change may be at the end of the Adagietto. In the Ratz/Fussl edition, Mahler has marked “Drangend,’ or “pushing forward,” over the last eight bars, while in Kubik, the same eight bars are marked Sehr Zuruckhaltend, or “very held back.”

Read more…

I’m back home at last after a busy concert weekend with the Wilmslow Symphony. In spite of the foul weather, we had a nearly full house and the audience seemed to enjoy the lively, if intense, evening of music

The program was a mixture of British and American music- Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture, Edward Gregson’s Trombone Concerto and Malcom Arnold’s Scottish Dances made an all Brit first half, and Copland’s Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo and Gershwin’s American in Paris made an all-American 2^nd half.

Even as I was unpacking my suitcase for the first time when I moved to the land of hope and glory, I had made up my mind to minimize my performances of the music of America here. In particular, I felt that doing too much music that oozes “Americana” would quickly put me in the trap of being only an “American” music conductor, and not just a conductor, in the UK.

In fact, I’ve only conducted one all-American program in all my time here, and that was hardly a pops concert- Ives 3, Piston Sinfonietta, Barber Adagio and Summer Music. I did Appalachian Spring with BBC NOW a while back, which was lovely, but the rest of that program ranged from Kodaly to Berio (believe it or not, it was a concert of listener requests!). I’m much more interested in bringing some new works by living composers I really like and believe in here, than in doing tons of Bernstein, Gershwin and Copland, even though I love their music. It actually bums me out that it seems like the only living American composers known in the UK are Adams and Glass- there are so many more who should be heard in British concert halls.

In fact, it did strike me on Saturday that I really do love both American in Paris and Rodeo, and I was damn glad to be doing them. So, have I been cheating myself  by doing all that Haydn and Shostakovich here?

Well, as it happens, much as I love American in Paris, I think I love Cockaigne even more. I could live without Gershwin (it would seriously bum me out, though), but I can’t imagine life without Elgar. We’re all conditioned to speak of musicians as champions of the music their homeland, but do I feel like American music in particular speaks to me in a uniquely close way? Not really- I was listening to Shostakovich for years before I first heard a piece by Copland. I love Gershwin, but I had to come to it in my own way. Modern jazz is my first love in the jazz world- the language of early jazz which one hears in the Gershwin is something I learned to appreciate much later. Gershwin’s use of jazz was probably  more of a barrier to me than a benefit when I was young and hyper-opinionated and too angry and intense to tolerate pre-bebop jazz.

I suppose I might be more drawn to music that spoke in the same language as vernacular music of my own time and home. After all, I think it would be a stretch to say I have more in common with a Buckaroo than the narrator of Mahler’s Wayfarer songs just because I grew up on the same continent. On the other hand, if there was more great classical music that tapped into the language of Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top or Tom Lehrer, to name just a few, maybe I would feel a “special” connection to it.

In the meantime, I don’t think we should feel that there is a barrier in getting to the core of music from other nations. I always smile when I remember the last time I conducted Prokofiev 5- the Russian first stand of the first violins (a rare daughter/father combination) came back to my dressing room after the run of concerts and told me I had a Russian soul. An American may tend to have a musical equivalent of an accent when performing the music of France, Russia or Germany, but if you listen widely to authentic voices, you can drop that accent.

We’re still finalizing programs for my next couple concerts up in Wilmslow, but it looks like Mahler 1 is a go, as is the Brahms D minor Piano Concerto. How’s my German?

More thoughts on the arts’ place in economic stimulus from Robin Bronk at the Huggington Post here.

In these times of economic crisis, it seems only rational that we should look back at our history to review what works if we want to create jobs and secure a strong economic legacy for future generations.

When faced with a collapsing economy, President Franklin Roosevelt tried to put Americans in all lines of work back on the job. Instead of singling out artists as somehow frivolous and unimportant to our nation’s economy, he instituted a host of programs designed to put federal funds into the arts, employing America’s creative talent and leaving a cultural legacy that endures still today.

The highpoint of this commitment was the Works Progress Administration’s Federal One program, which put thousands of Americans to work in the arts. The government program was a lifeline for Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Orson Welles, Burt Lancaster, Sidney Lumet, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Studs Terkel, John Cheever, Saul Bellow, and thousands of other artists across the country.

These programs created much-needed jobs in the immediate term, but they did much more. They fostered great talents that otherwise may have been lost. The work of the many great artists supported by the government in the 1930s still benefits us today. Their contributions to our culture endure, and their successful careers resulted in employment for many others in the years that followed.

The one good thing our former president seemed to do during his presidency was de-politicize arts funding in the US. To my complete and total surprise, the NEA budget was safe from cuts during his tenure and gradually expanded, and we were spared the pathetic spectacle of redneck congressmen grandstanding against funding for “controversial” art that in some way challenged their world view. Not what I expected from a man who can’t read.

Why am I not surprised that that 2 weeks after ole Dubya left, his old pals in congress have discarded the single positive aspect of his bloody and evil legacy. Tom Coburn and his cronies are fighting to cut all funding for the arts from the stimulus bill, in spite of the fact that the arts are and have always been one of the most effective engines for economic renewal and development.

Let me make this clear- cutting arts funding isn’t a matter of bad politics- it’s bad economics.

 Every dollar invested in the arts generates more economic activity than spending in virtually any other area of government expense or investment- that seed money helps engage artists, who spend their money on instruments, concert clothes, cars, parking, marketing and so on. They give concerts, which bring people into our city centers, where they go to restaurants, hotels and shop. Those shopkeepers and restauranteurs hire people who themselves tend to be active cultural participants- heck most of those waiters are actors or musicians. Arts dollars have been shown again and again to circultate faster and more times than defense dollars, infrastructure dollars, sports dollars. Only education investments, science investments and health investments pay off in the GDP with anything like the effectiveness of core arts funding. 

Anyway, cheers  to Elaine for finding us a good way do something about this. Write your senator here.

And, this is the kind of brain smashing stupidity we’re dealing with.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has introduced an amendment to prohibit any funds in the economic stimulus bill from going to museums, theaters, or arts centers.

The language of the amendment, (Amendment No. 175, as filed) is, “None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, arts center, or highway beautification project, including renovation, remodeling, construction, salaries, furniture, zero-gravity chairs, big screen televisions, beautification, rotating pastel lights, and dry heat saunas.” 

 

And, it’s not just arts- the National Science Foundation is under attack from the yahoos as well. From Salon-

Sorry, National Endowment for the Arts — sure, Walker Evans may have taken a few pretty photos during the Great Depression, but you won’t miss that $50 million, right? This is what point-and-shoot digital cameras were made for, people.

$1 billion for the National Science Foundation? What do you think this is, Louis Pasteur, France?

$1 billion for Amtrak? Come on, it’s not like those trains ever run on time anyway. And surely funding from Congress, which forces them to operate unprofitable routes, couldn’t fix their problems.