Death and the Maiden’s New Clothes

It’s interesting to consider just how important a role the instrumentation and orchestration of a piece of music play in its overall aesthetic. I never gave it all that much thought. I knew there were some tremendously gifted orchestrators scattered throughout musical history like Rimsky-Korsakov and Berlioz and Haydn. I knew that many composers had authorized arrangements of their music in new orchestrations if they didn’t do it themselves. I knew that the character of a piece could change based on the instrumental colors it was dressed in. But rarely has the fundamental nature of a musical moment shifted so radically to my ears than when I ran across a version of the Schubert “Death and the Maiden” Quartet for full orchestra.

The Heartbreak Kid: Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert had syphilis. Or maybe he did not. If he did, he got it from a male prostitute. Unless he did not. Officially he died of typhoid fever, but he had symptoms of mercury poisoning. Mercury would have been a common treatment for syphilis at that time. And you could probably get it from prostitutes, male or female. Syphilis, of course, eventually makes you lose your shit and descend into something resembling madness, but perhaps that madness also gives you an insight into things that the rest of us who aren’t banging whores could never know. I’m not sure if there’s any better explanation for the last 5 years or so of Franz Schubert’s compositional life. He went from being a dude who wrote catchy songs, some lovely piano and chamber music, and some Haydn-ish orchestral music to the guy who wrote quite possibly the deepest and most heartbreakingly tragic music in human history.

Something to listen to: Schubert D959 Andantino

This was apparently performed in memory of Ingmar Bergman. That’s cool I guess. Mostly, Roland Pontinen plays with incredible style and control and this is probably one of the five most beautiful things ever written. Warning: may cause reflection upon the direction of one’s life.

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.

I was at a concert: Four guys you may have heard of…

Mix equal parts John Wayne, Dirty Harry, Ninja, Mike Tyson before prison, John Bonham's drumming on "Whole Lotta Love", and Pirate. Add orchestra.

Last week’s concerts with the Kansas City Symphony were led by their associate conductor, Steven Jarvi, whose picture on the group’s website makes him look like he’s 16 years old. Jarvi might be older than that. He is unequivocally more musically sophisticated than that.

Jarvi, as far as I can tell, doesn’t appear to bear anything other than a fortunate surname in common with Neeme, Paavo, Kristjian, and however many other Jarvis are out there (think of them as the Wayans Brothers of orchestral conducting). Ironically, though, his conducting style reminded me a bit of his non-brother Paavo: maybe a little sweepy on occasion for me, but always clear, concise, and controlled. I have no problem saying that my expectations were not very high…not because of Mr. Jarvi particularly, but because of pretty much every other young conductor I’ve observed in the last few years. It was a meaty program of some of the finest music Austria ever had to offer, and a true test of a conductor’s mettle.