Nimble Tread

Ahoy Hoy!

I'm afraid I'm off to Montreal for a week or so, which means posting might be a bit irregular for a spell. 
But before I go, I'd just like to praise all involved in last night's concert performance of Fidelio at the Barbican.  The LSO under Sir Colin's baton sounded terrific, rising to great heights of joy and descending to the dankest abyssmal depths in conjunction with the cast and chorus.  And speaking of the cast, it was as close to ideal as you're likely to see: Sally Matthews was a spitfire of a Marzeline -- edgy and passionate all at once; Kristinn Sigmundsson, a last-minute replacement for Alfred Reiter, was built to sing Rocco, and really amazed me with his peculiar compound of buffoonery, bravado, and empathy; Christine Brewer was so convincing as Leonore/Fidelio that I'd have laid money on the fact that she was the spitting image of a male turnkey rather than a begowned songbird; and perhaps best of all was Juha Uusitalo as a Don Pizarro.  His brow hinged like a chevron, he blustered about with the insane degree of magisterial bombast Beethoven envisioned for his character, shouting and swearing, and generally managing to appear frightening and pathetic all at once.   Now that's just good stuff.

(Happy Birthday, Mom!)

Una Corda

András Schiff presented a remarkable lecture/recital at the Wigmore this afternoon, the penultimate in his series on Beethoven's piano sonati.  He dealt with Op.96, Op.101, and Op.106 (Hammerklavier), vascillatiing between aesthetic details and mild harmonic theory in his discussion of each piece.  Things got underway at 2:00, and when I left at 4:30, he was still going strong on the movement of thirds in the Hammerklavier's fugue. 
I enjoy listening to people who speak tangentially, but use their departures from the theme to enrich the point they're trying to make.  I find it even more enjoyable when the person can use an instrument to expand beyond the limits of spoken language and move into the more abstract realm of music.  Schiff spoke very well, and made his transitions from speaking to playing particularly endearing by singing the first few notes he had in his head and then filling them out with the piano.  I believe his next -- and last -- lecture is this coming November, which means tickets should go on sale sometime in June.  If you have a schedule that allows you to sneak away for a few hours on a weekday afternoon, you might want to consider putting a few of those hours to good use by spending them with good ol' Mr. Schiff.

Elementary

Today is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 147th birthday, which, as someone who walks within spitting distance of Sherlock Holmes' residence (221B Baker Street for you heathens who don't have that address committed to memory) on a fairly regular basis, I find interesting.  More interesting, however, is the marvel of coding that simple deduction will show connects the writer to his most famous scion.  Perhaps interesting is the wrong word.  Astounding, I believe, is more fitting.   
Consider the following: Sir Arthur was born in 1859, a year that began on a Saturday, and the year in which the bell known as Big Ben was activated, one day before the writer was born, also a Saturday.  Though most people apply the name Big Ben to the tower in which the bell is housed, the structure itself, which is 318 feet high, is actually called St. Stephen's Tower.  It was named to commemorate the saint of the same name, whose first appearance in church history occurs after the Ascension of Our Lord, and is recorded in Chapters VI and VII of the Acts of the Apostles, which is of course the fifth book of the New Testament.  It's generally believed that the book was written by Luke the Evangelist, a first century AD Christian whose feast day falls on October 18th.  Now, in the year 1859, the year of Sir Arthur's birth, October 18th fell on a Tuesday.  Twenty-eight years later, in 1887, the year of Sherlock Holmes' first appearance, October 18th fell on, you guessed it, a Tuesday.  Now, as everyone knows, Tuesday is the day associated with the planet Mars, and Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun.  If we take the word "sun" and list the numerical values associated with the letters S-U-N, we get 19-21-14, which was my locker combination in high school.  A fellow alumnus of my school is Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, but also author of a short novel called Billy Budd, which remained unpublished and in a tin can for thirty years, and was made into an opera by Britten.  It was first performed on December 1, 1951, which was a Saturday.  Also in 1951, the prime minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated.  A statement of condolence was issued by Afghanistan, which was then at odds with Pakistan, in which Khan's abilities were praised.  The assassination came on October 16th, a Tuesday, and two days before St Stephen's feast day.  Now that the foundation is laid, I think you can all guess the neat conclusion to this string of facts.  As literature is the quoin upon which society is built, the time has come for quotation.  Conan Doyle describes Watson and Holmes' first meeting as follows:
"Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes," said Stamford, introducing us.
"How are you," [Holmes] said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit.  "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive." 
Yes, that's right, Afghanistan.  And the book -- A Study in Scarlet, which, as I mentioned earlier, was written in 1887, when Sir Arthur was only 28.  28 in roman numerals is XXVIII, which if separated into letters and transformed to numerical equivalents gives 24-24-22-9-9-9, which, added up, equals 97.  9+7=16.  The letter linked to 16 is P.  Holmes and Watson lived at 221B Baker Streeet.  That is to say, 22-1-B, which gives us U-A-B.  Added to P, we get the four letters U-A-B-P.  If rearranged, these letters spell very little in English, but if we use the Russian alphabet, we get V for B, R for P, A for A, and the sound "ts" for U.  A simple arrangement will yield the word RAVTs, which, as everyone knows is the acronym for Regional Almond Variety Trials.  Now, as is common knowledge, the highest yielding almond variety in Tunisia is the 48-5, or the 4-8-5, which converted to letters, gives us D-H-E, or HED.  If we think back to St Stephen's Tower, we'll recall that its height is 318 feet, and if we take the alphabetical equivalent of 3-18, we get C-R.  Combined with D-H-E, we get C-R-D-H-E, which is easily arranged to spell DRECH.  Drech is a Yiddish word, and therefore associated with Judaism.  Also associated with Judaism is the Torah, and one of the chief tenets outlined in the Torah is to recognize God's dominion, which is especially important on Shabbat, which occurs every Saturday.  The Hebrew word for dominion is moshel, and if we simply rearrange the letters of that word, we come to the end of our adventure, and spell the name Holmes.  Elementary, my dear readers.

Do.Not.Laugh.

One of the fun things about taking the tube here in London is seeing what people read while they pretend to ignore everything going on around them.  I say why judge one cover when you can judge two: someone might look interesting enough until she produces a copy of The DaVinci Code from her bag and applies herself to it with pedantic severity of an Oxford don.  The Sun is also a good source of entertainment in that it provides the reader with a moral quandary, namely what to do with the very topless Page 3 girl.  Does one flip past with feigned disinterest, or let the eyes linger for a while, secure in the assessment that the only reason anyone would buy The Sun in the first place is for the nudie pic, so why bother with ruses?  Italo Calvino had something to say on the tangential subject of nude beach humanism in Mr. Palomar, which I'd encourage most of you to read.  Maybe even on the tube. 
Yesterday I came across what is without a doubt my favourite tube reader scenario -- the P.G. Wodehouse lip pucker.  What can be better than watching someone's eyes well up with tears of strain as he does everything in his power to not laugh?  It's fantastic, really, and I think kind of endearing.  Hell, any Wodehouse reader worth his salt has, at one time or another, had to suck on a smile and think of dead puppies to prevent public humiliation.  Looked at through the proper prism, the experience can be seen as a badge of honour, and if you ask me, should be praised in its ability to disseminate good cheer.  Laughter is contagious.  It's also the great universal balm.  Is there anything else in this world that's at once both virus and panacea?   

Sixteen Strings

The Takács Quartet played a really terrific lunchtime concert at the Wigmore the other day.  What was especially noteworty -- aside from their typically strong and well-conceived playing -- was the clever pairing of Bartók's second string quartet, a Takács standby, with Mozart's String Quartet in C K. 465, otherwise known as the "Dissonance" quartet.  Separated from the rest of the piece, Mozart's opening adagio could easily be mistaken for a contemporary composition, and, accordingly, it manages to link two well-known but scarcely related works, thereby bridging the 130 year gap that separates the quartets. 

And speaking of bridging gaps, I'd like to thank Ed Dusinberre (the Takács's first violinist) for allowing me to be a fly on the wall today as he worked on Beethoven's Op. 18 No. 4 with a student quartet at the Guildhall School.  It's wonderful to hear a piece begin to crackle, and equally wonderful, though perhaps in not as positive a sense, to see how easy it is to succumb to the pleasures of playing without giving sufficient thought to the abstract intricacies of what's being played.  There are times when the best technique is to ask questions.  Consider the following: "when is my next chance to hear the Takács live?"  Answer: May 18th at the Guildhall.  And it's free!

I'll have a dry sherry, please

Violinist Anthony Marwood and pianist Aleksander Madzar received a thunderous round of whoops and applauds this morning at the Wigmore, though I didn't particularly get why.  It guess it's true what they say about finishing high, loud, or fast.

They played a nice programme, with Bach's Violin Sonata No. 3 in E leading the way, and Debussy's Violin Sonata in G minor and Schumann's Violin Sonata No. 2 in D minor following in its wake.  All the pieces were played well, just a bit too stiffly for my taste.  I realize I sound like a Sunday evening curmudgeon, and what can be worse, but I can't change the facts.  I will, however, spin to positive, and ay that Marwood's tightness was great for the symphonic take off in the Schumann piece and, though his energy flagged toward the end of the first movement, he made up for it with well-executed lyrical passage work in the second and third.  As for the Bach and Debussy, well, a little deep breathing and a dash more preparation might have been just the ticket.

Bar-B-Q

It occurs to me that I've let my membership to Ronnie Scott's lapse, and find myself surprisingly untroubled by this, which, to be honest, makes me a bit sad.  And therefore less untroubled.  Which makes me less sad, so I guess that works out.  But still, I miss struggling through fatigue and chromatic dissonance to sneak a piece of the elusive jazz vibe that, empirical data shows, doesn't crystallize until 2 am.  Accordingly, swanning into the Barbican at 7:30 feels like cheating, and as they say, cheaters never prosper.  They do, however, get to listen to Sonny Rollins for a couple of hours, and that's a trade off I'll take every time.

Much has been written and said about the man himself -- I'll refer you to Stanley Crouch's excellent May, 2005 New Yorker piece -- and though I'd been romanced by stories of him playing in the wee hours on the span of the Williamsburg Bridge, I'd never had the good fortune to hear him live.  1960s jazz icons have become something of a rarity -- at least living ones -- and it's gotten so that B-list boppers command untold respect for having played a few nights with Charlie Parker and manage to somehow continue breathing.  But to get some face time with someone like Rollins is an altogether different matter. 

There's a veil of uncertainty that shrouds aged musicians of all genres, and from the audience member's standpoint, there's no telling what you're likely to get.  Some musicians play a tick slower than in their heyday, or slur a phrase here and there, but make up for it with the force of their presence; others fall prey to perpetual farewell tour syndrome, and string together a train of crowd pleasers that drives straight to listeners' hearts, and scatters traces of the artist into every crevice, like brakedust. 

Rollins is one of the rare few that subscribe to neither school.  He can still play plenty fast, and, at 75 or so, still has the lungs to create a strong, really wonderful tone.  At the Barbican last night, he played a few standards -- They Say Falling in Love is Wondeful, Salvador, Without a Song -- but conspicuously absent was blatant signature fare, like St. Thomas, and that made me happy.  The sound was fairly atrocious -- Barbican Hall doesn't do well with amplified music, especially amplified drums -- but it improved as the evening wore on, and it wouldn't have mattered much even if it hadn't because it was still easy to hear Rollins' horn.  It's plain to see why people claim he's the most creative improviser of all time, and he nudged this opinion one step closer to myth with last night's solo work, which included him slipping the Morning theme from Grieg's Peer Gynt into Without a Song, and later embarking on a five-minute-long coda in which he picked his way through a score-and-a-half of standard melodies, complete with key modulations and the occasional chuckle from his horn.  It was impressive stuff, and reinforced my admiration for those people who enjoy the hard-wiring between brain and instrument of expression (mouth, hands, horn) that makes extemporizing such a magnificent talent.

Drum noise aside, the band sounded great.  I was particularly impressed by Clifton Anderson on the trombone, who made what has to be a difficult improvisatory instrument sound full and warm throughout the concert.  Also, six-string allegiance compels me to mention Rollins' guitarist, whose name I'm afraid I didn't catch, but who played with his thumb, like Wes Montgomery, though he seemed a touch more lighthearted as he marched and danced around his corner of the stage.  Two drummers and a bassist rounded out the ensemble, and all displayed symptoms of being tickled pink to be playing with Sonny, which is fair enough, but seems a bit unusual for typically cucumber-cool jazz players. 

Rollins, on the other hand, kept an even keel throughout and, to my gratification, completely looked the part.  He wore all black, including a pair of sunglasses that cut a horizontal line across his face, which was itself oval in shape and framed by a uniform border of white hair.  He moved with the horn player shuffle, and when he stopped it was always in jazz hero position: feet firmly planted, horn open to the audience, eyes gazing to infinity.  He just looked built for his instrument.  Horn free, his right shoulder hung two or three inches below his left, and his back hunched slightly at its top so that, as with Rostropovich and his cello, even the feeblest imagination could conjure a vision of the missing instrument.  What a wonderful thing it is to succeed at one's calling.

From the Rostrum

Quoth Leonard Bernstein: "[conducting is] exactly like breathing: the perparation is like an inhalation, and the music sounds as an exhalation."
Quoth Richard Strauss regarding the conductor's use of the left hand: "[It] has nothing to do with conducting.  Its proper place is in the waistcoat pocket from which it should only emerge to restrain or to make some minor gesture for which in any case a scarcely perceptible glance would suffice.  Better to conduct with the ear instead of the arm."

Nobody Nose the Trouble I've Seen

Plácido Domingo is back at Covent Garden singing the title role in Alfano 's opera, Cyrano de Bergerac, which, if my math is right, was written about the same time Domingo finished college.  Ha, ha!  I kid, of course, and if anything, I mean my quip to highlight the tenor's remarkably long career, which, if his performance yesterday is anything to go by, is still a spell from its end.

Cyrano is a difficult opera to sing well, and the entire cast got off to a slow start, dragged down by wooden, somewhat clumsy acting, and a dearth of dramatic sparkle.  To be fair, and I'm nothing if not fair, the lack of zip seemed more a product of timing than talent, and sure enough, the opera's bellows began to swell in Act II's balcony scene when Cyrano woos Roxane on Christian's behalf.  Domingo, who until that point had been delicately clearing his throat every few minutes, seemed at last to settle into his voice, and began to grow increasingly expressive.  When he promised to help Christian, we believed he wanted to live vicariously through the young soldier; when he sang on Christian's behalf, he seemed to float on the mist of dreams as he finally spoke the sweet nothings to Roxane he'd longed to speak for so long; when he watches Christian climb over the balcony railing to a waiting Roxane, Cyrano spirals back to earth, where he's relieved of his happy illusion and cast back under the shadow of his tremendous facial apendage. 

Sondra Radvanovsky's purity of tone, nice sense of humour, and comfort in the role of Roxane, along with Raymond Very's youthful verve as Christian, complemented Domingo's gallant performance, and the opera continued to coalesce right up to the very end, and Cyrano's final word, panache. 

Alfano's opera certainly won't leave you skipping through Covent Garden with wings on your heels and a tune on your lips, but if you're anything like me, you'll probably still be happy to have seen it, and happy to have seen Domingo for what could always be the last time -- at least with a sword rather than baton in his hand.