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When I was in high school, my youth orchestra played the last movement of the Hanson ‘Romantic’ Symphony one time, and I think Procession of the Sardar at some point. What we didn’t do was play a totally engaging Sibelius 5 at Lincoln Fucking Center in New York. Plus, they’re from Carmel, Indiana, so you know at least ten of these kids are automatic from three-point range.

This is why amateur performances can be rewarding: those bastards look like they’re having a great time, and they’re playing with tremendous energy. That’s a great foundation for kick-ass music-making, but it gets lost sometimes. Props to them for playing their asses off and making an alcoholic Scandinavian in Heaven proud.

 

Leonard Bernstein and the price of transcendence

1000 words

Depending on what day you ask me, I’m equally as fanatic about sports as I am about music. One of my favorite writers in any subject is Bill Simmons, who writes for ESPN about a variety of things, but if we are to believe his 800-page book on the subject, basketball is his area of greatest expertise. It is in said 800-page book that Simmons discusses the careers of the best players in the history of the game. There are many great observations and anecdotes throughout, but some of the best material is about the great Bill Walton.

Bill Walton was probably the 6th or 7th best center in the history of the NBA (certainly behind Russell, Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain, Olajuwon, O’Neal), but that is almost entirely due to problems with his feet that still plague him to this day. When he was healthy, though, Walton was one of the most gifted players in history, and it is Simmons’ contention that Walton would have been one of the elite players of all-time had his feet not betrayed him (the reasons for this hypothesis are essentially the point of the entire book, which I would encourage anyone who has even a passing interest in basketball to read).

In one of the discussions about Walton, Simmons debates the merits of transcendence versus stable excellence, asking if one would prefer Walton’s incredibly brief peak as an unparalleled dominant force compared to David Robinson’s long-term excellence (Robinson was a talented player, but he never won a title as the main guy on his team, and in fact got utterly crushed by Hakeem Olajuwon during his prime). This, of course, got me thinking about music, although not in quite the same way.

Program Notes: Tschaikovsky – Symphony no. 5

Pyotr Ilyich Tschaikovsky circa 1893

Countless works have been composed musically representing ad astra per aspera (“through hardships to the stars”); oddly enough, a number of the most popular of these are symphonies numbered 5.  Mahler’s epic Fifth takes us from the darkness of the opening funeral march in C# minor to the radiant Rondo-Finale in D major; Shostakovich’s immensely popular Fifth plunges through 45 minutes of brooding intensity and builds to a crushingly optimistic climax in C major (even if it seems like a Stalinist ventriloquist act); Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony goes from a first movement that sounds like a march to the Gates of Hell to a luminous orchestral shower of A Mighty Fortress is Our God.  Of course, the gold standard for this musical trajectory (and an awful lot of other things, too) is the Fifth of Beethoven.  But no symphony makes it quite as obvious as Tschaikovsky’s magical Fifth.

10 Best: Symphonies no. 5

A few years ago, some friends and I devised an NCAA-style bracket tournament to determine the greatest composer of all-time through a rigorous series of discussions.  The overwhelming majority of humans would likely declare that arguing over who was better/more important between Ravel and Schoenberg is a pointless waste of time.  Just because they’re correct doesn’t mean it still can’t have benefits; talking about music, no matter how unusually, is far from pointless.

It is with that same general spirit in mind that I invite you into my world of randomly ranking things like best symphonies based solely on their number. It probably seems like a ridiculous idea, and it is, but it still gets you thinking about great music, and ultimately that’s good.  Read this and think about it.  Even better, listen to the music and rate for yourself.  Think of me as a cult leader and classical music as the cyanide Kool-Aid.  Do it now.

Something to listen to: Shostakovich Symphony no. 5

Is there a Russian Scatman Crothers for our remake of "The Shining?"

Shostakovich wrote his Fifth Symphony in 1937, and it was no less than a resounding success, not only to the listening public, but to the even closer listening Communist regime (seriously, everyone check for Stalin-era listening devices!).  Since that time, it has gone on to achieve enormous popularity worldwide, become a staple of every orchestra’s repertoire, and, in a turn of affairs that can only be described the way you would describe a train explosion, it has even been arranged for marching band (watch this video from about the 8-minute mark, but grab a pillow to punch repeatedly then bury your head in first).

With such overwhelming presence, there has been no shortage of recorded performances of the symphony to choose from.  In fact, I uploaded one to this very blog moons ago while exploring the value of using recordings in preparing to conduct a piece, even though I generally disparaged the recording I uploaded.  I would generally say that most performances tend to leave me feeling rather “meh” about them, and I’ve basically stuck by the trusty Kondrashin and Rostropovich recordings of ancient times when I purchased something called a “compact disc” from a place that housed many of them which they called a “record store.”

Recordings: Cheating or Research?

Yevgeny Mravinsky Conducts Shostakovich's 5th

Having had the opportunity to study conducting with some extremely refined and intelligent musicians in my short time, I have noticed a pattern that echoes through the halls of eternal teaching: don’t listen to recordings when you’re studying a score.

Now, I preface this entire post, with the exception of that amazing first paragraph you just read, by saying that I agree with this philosophy, in a vacuum.  So many times recordings provide an imprint on us as musicians and we cannot hear them another way, think of them another way, or distance ourselves from them, which is obviously a problem.  For example, my first experience with Mysterious Mountain by Hovhaness was the classic Reiner/Chicago Symphony recording, which has a generally broader tempo range than any other recording I’ve heard, especially in the first movement.  And I’ve gotten to the point where I damn near refuse to accept anything other than Reiner’s tempo.  I’ve never had the chance to study the score, but I hope when that time comes I’m able to distance myself from my memories, because it’s a recipe for disaster.

The reason I bring this up now is because over the last several years I’ve been particularly keen to the balance recordings try to walk in relation to the Symphony no. 5 of Shostakovich, especially as regards the tempo of the coda in the finale.  It reared its head again last evening when I was listening to a performance featuring the Concertgebouworkest conducted by Jaap van Zweden.  It was a fine performance overall (Zweden has been virtually touring the galaxy with this piece in tow lately), but the coda left a lot to be desired, for me.  I echo these same sentiments in regards to a performance with Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic I also heard recently.

The tempo of this coda is the subject of much debate.  In the score it is marked to be played slowly.  Shostakovich is said to have “authorized” a basic doubling of the tempo when in rehearsal with Leonard Bernstein.  Of course, you can try to have your cake and eat it too by trying to play the middle somewhere.  So what’s right?

If you guessed “there is no correct answer,” I guess you’re probably right.  But this is where the legacy of recordings comes into play and I struggle with this entire concept.  When I attended a conducting workshop in 2007, we discussed the de facto ban on recordings in a seminar, and I asked if recordings weren’t, in fact, documents that should contribute to your research of the music.  I don’t think I explained myself well at all, but the answer was essentially…not so much.

But why?  Take the recorded history of this piece.  When considering the coda taken at a fast tempo, you find names like Bernstein, Ormandy, Maazel, Haitink etc.  When considering the “have your cake and eat it too” approach, you find names like Ashkenazy, Jansons, Alsop, etc.  When considering the slow tempo, you find names like Mravinsky, Kondrashin, Rostropovich.  One need not be a scholar to see which group of names sticks out there.

Mravinsky and Kondrashin combined to premiere more than half of Shostakovich’s symphonies.  They both maintained significant relationships with him throughout their careers.  Rostropovich, as everyone knows, was one of Shostakovich’s closest friends.  They all lived, breathed, and experienced firsthand the Russian history that is inexorably intertwined with Shostakovich’s music.  To paraphrase my mother, “perhaps I’m the asshole here,” but it seems downright foolish not to consider these recordings when doing your research on the score.

Let the record show that this aspect of research should only be done after you have completed your own study of the score…as I said before, this I agree with.  But recordings, to me, are a tool of immeasurable value when “doing your homework” on a piece of music.

Stravinsky was a terrible conductor of his own music, in my opinion, but you’d be insane not to give a listen to the old CBS set of the man himself conducting his greatest orchestral works.  Mahler left us with some piano rolls, notably of the first movement of the Fifth Symphony, and it would be just slackerish to not investigate them.

For those curious to hear the recording that brought this bloody catastrophe of a blog post out of me, I will include the links here…follow the same steps as last time.  The remainder of the concert was interesting and a good listen, including a very fine reading of the Barber Violin Concerto with soloist Vesko Eschkenazy.

http://rapidshare.com/files/199846421/Zweden-Concertgebouworkest.rar.001

http://rapidshare.com/files/199853073/Zweden-Concertgebouworkest.rar.002

http://rapidshare.com/files/199846519/Zweden-Concertgebouworkest.rar.003

http://rapidshare.com/files/199860913/Zweden-Concertgebouworkest.rar.004

And for a means of comparison, here are essentially the two opposing takes on the coda in question from two of the greatest masters we’ll ever know:

Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic

Yevgeny Mravinsky, Leningrad Philharmonic

Las Vegas–Cultural Wasteland

Vegas, Baby

I’ve been having some mixed emotions lately, sitting around the house.  On the one hand, I finally tracked down a copy of “White Men Can’t Jump” on DVD (“No, no, no, that’s Ghana.  You, my friend, are shooting for the Sudan.”).  On the other hand, the most prominent classical music news story of the past week has been the looming demise of the Las Vegas Philharmonic, an orchestra that I have no affiliation with, but an orchestra in which I have more than a dozen friends, colleagues, and acquaintances.

The Las Vegas Sun has some stories here and here about the issues facing the orchestra right now.  Issues that surprise me exactly 0%.  Having grown up in the Neon Jungle, I saw first hand how utterly devoid of musical culture the city is.

I’ve got stories, myself.  Like how my mother and countless other professionals played with prominent entertainers and jazz musicians (knowing what I know now, I’d have killed to be there when mom played with and met Sammy Davis Jr.) before they started using canned music.  Or how a friend of a friend said he was moving to Vegas to be a jazzer (he was a saxophonist), was struggling to make ends meet, and had plumbing issues.  He called the plumber, and he actually recognized him.  He asked him what he was doing being a plumber, and was told, “I have a family to support.”  That plumber, as it turns out, was Carl Fontana, arguably the greatest jazz trombonist of all fucking time.  Jesus, Vegas.

My favorite depressing story, though, comes from high school.  I had just discovered Mahler within the year, and as luck would have it, Danielle Gatti and the Royal Philharmonic were performing the 5th Symphony on tour on the UNLV campus.  My friend and I both excitedly purchased tickets for over $50.  Fast forward two weeks, and we hear news that the hall is only sold to about 30% capacity.  They decided to give tickets away to everyone in the music program at my school (I went to a performing arts magnet school).  And, as you can imagine, the exact same thing happened the next year when Vladimir Ashkenazy and the DSO Berlin came, bringing Shostakovich 10 with them.  But I’ll be damned if my younger sister’s ballet studio’s recital didn’t pack the shit out of that hall.  Really, Vegas?

They’ll tell to if you listen that they have priceless works of art.  And they do…buried in the Wynn, the Bellagio, the Venetian, and probably some more, they have some stellar art collections.  Great.  Meanwhile, an orchestra with some absolutely first-rate musicians can’t even make it through a 6-concert season?  That orchestra has folded and restarted more times than I have fingers, even if I were the six-fingered man from The Princess Bride.  Thank God Phantom of the Fucking Opera sells out all the time.  What the fuck, Vegas?

The truth is, Vegas is an anomaly.  They have 2 million people in the metro, but they don’t have a professional sports team.  Green Bay, Wisconsin has a professional sports team.  You know what else they have?  A Symphony Orchestra that can do 6 concerts a year.  But what they don’t have is an endless army of casinos, restaurants, movie theaters, bowling alleys, and pawn shops.

I still visit Las Vegas when I can.  My father still lives there.  I like it when I’m there.  The town has a palpable energy, and even though I’m not much of a gambler, drinker, or high-end call girl seeker, I dig that energy.  I just know that while I’m there I can forget about any of the culture that enriches my life, because it’s nowhere to be found.