Nimble Tread

Behind the Scenes

We've just come off the 4th annual Open Rehearsal weekend, and I can't help but feel that it was a somewhat half-hearted gift to audiences.  The idea itself, which, in the Mayor's staff's words, "aims to open doors, engage audiences, encourage participation   and learning and promote London's phenomenal cultural offerings" is terrific.  How better to lure new and younger listeners to the arts than to give them a peek at the process and thereby burn off some of the mists of esoterica?  But that assumes that the events themselves are structured to make such a glimpse possible.  With the exception of the inimitable Vladimir Jurowski, who not only deigned to address the audience, but let it get right up close to the LPO during their rehearsal of Brahms' 2nd and Strauss Metamorphosen, the bands relegated spectators to the rear stalls of the Royal Festival and Queen Elizabeth Halls, where one could hardly hear a peep of on-stage conversation.  The music would start and the music would stop, and that's about all.  It didn't take long for the audience to grow bored at the Mullova Ensemble's rehearsal, and people began streaming in and out of the hall like ants at a barbeque.  I snuck out after twenty minutes or so, thankful to leave a dreary rendition of Schubert's Octet behind, but wishing I'd learnt a little bit more about what the musicians were thinking in its creation. 
Maybe next year some of the orchestras will let people spy on an early working rehearsal and show the amount of effort involved in taking a piece from scruffy to polished.  Sound unlikely?  Well, the Royal Ballet does it from time to time with their masterclasses, and benefits enormously from the offering by not only encouraging people in attendance to buy tickets for the finished product, but also by allowing its performers to show just how good they are.  I'd think many of our orchestras would do well to follow a similar tack, and the events should be encouraged rather than tolerated by conductors.  After all, it isn't every day they get to prove that they do a touch more than dance around on a podium for two hours every few nights.  Most of them, anyways.

A Memory in Memoriam

The first time I met Paul Newman was on a chilly early Spring day in a small wood in Ashford, Connecticut.  It was at The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, which Newman had created as a fount of normalcy for kids with life-threatening illnesses, and where I, along with a few actually talented Vermont woodworkers had been invited to build a treehouse for the campers.  We'd been at it for a couple of months already, and as we were living in situ, we'd gotten to know some of the camp's permanent staff quite well.  They were a mixed lot, but had two things in common: enormous pride in their work, and a dear, almost paternal love for Paul Newman.  "He's just a down to earth guy," they'd tell you.  "And he loves that the kids who come here don't have the first clue who he is."  I was never sure how true the second part was, but was fond of a story I'd heard at various times from nearly everyone at camp.  Newman had apparently sat down to eat with a few of the campers at a table laid from end to end with Newman's Own products.  He noticed that the little girl sitting next to him was looking at him with some concern and that her eyes kept darting back and forth from his face to a carton of lemonade in front of her.  He asked her if anything was the matter, and after a few moments' hesitation and a final check of the picture on the carton finally asked, Are you lost? 
It's a sweet story, but I think that's only part of the reason everyone liked telling it.  In addition to emphasizing Newman's everyman persona, the story also encapsulates the wonderful equilibrium that existed between the actor and the campers.  They gave each other a sense of normal life and normal interactions: the kids forgot that their baldness or wheelchairs made them feel self-conscious, and Newman forgot that most everyone he met on a daily basis wanted to gain something for themselves from a famous man. 
He was by all accounts a person who felt himself inordinately lucky and knew he had to do something big to even the score.   Newman's Own was a good start, but despite its $250,000,000 given to charity, wasn't enough.  He felt he had to give of himself as well, and I'd wager it was this impulse that made Paul Newman at once a great actor and a terrific person. 
You sensed that when you met him too.  At least I did, that first time, on that grey snow-dusted day, when he came up to have a look at our treehouse.  He was wearing what appeared to be Blue Blocker sunglasses, and we'd had so many visitors that at first I wasn't sure who it was.  But then he took off his glasses and I saw those eyes.  He stuck out his hand in my direction, "Quite the job you fellas are doing here," he said.  Newman was 77 at the time, but before we knew it he was helping us guide a joist into place and talking about stringing a zip line from the treehouse to a platform on the lake below.   A couple of weeks later the two of us were shoulder-to-shoulder for a while at the grill, knocking out burgers and hotdogs at a celebratory party that marked the project's completion.  We were all excited that the treehouse was finally built, but no one was more fired up than Newman.  He pictured all of the kids who'd climb on it, or roll on it, or swing on it, and through him we saw it too. 

 

Found It!

I've been looking for this clip for a long time, and finally tracked it down on YouTube.  It's a video of Glenn Gould's composition So You Want to Write a Fugue, presented by the man himself and performed by Elizabeth Benson-Guy, Patricia Rideout, Gordon Wry, and Edgar Murdoch. 

Mr. Gould would have been 76 today.

Last Gasps

Warm days are quickly subsiding, and the Globe's 2008 season is at the end of its wane, so if you haven't yet seen the company's bawdy production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, you'd better get on it.  Click here for info on remaining performances.

RIP DFW

Sad news from Claremont, Ca., where David Foster Wallace was found dead on Friday night.  Doubly sad because it appears to have been a suicide.  Tributes will abound, so I'll leave the memorializing to people who knew him well.  Instead I'll offer a link to the writer in conversation with Charlie Rose, and will ask you to please scan ahead to 23:16.

KLRT Does Beethoven

The Kalichstein/Laredo/Robinson Trio have settled down to play all of Beethoven's piano trios at the Wigmore this week.  They set the ball rolling this morning with the genial Allegretto in Bb WoO39,  the demi-raucous Piano Trio in C minor Op. 1 No. 3, and the ever-entertaining Trio in Eb Op. 1 No. 1.  Tomorrow's lunchtime concert will feature the ghoulish Piano Trio in D Op. 70 No. 1 ('Ghost') and its opus partner Piano Trio in             Eb Op. 70 No. 2.  The band will then get the next day off in preparation for the last concert in the series, which will take place on the 17th and will feature the Trio in Bb Op. 11, the Trio in G Op. 1 No. 2, and the Archduke Trio, Op. 97, also in Bb. 
Add these programmes to the fact that the musicians are sort of fellow Vermonters, and you'd have to be made of sterner stuff than me to skip the concerts.   

On Your Marks

It's racing season, and for those of you itching for some friendly competition, there'll be a nice little 5K in Battersea Park on September 20th.  It's somewhat misleadingly called the Tree-Athlon, and you can find out more about it here.  If you're feeling a bit more ambitious, allow me to draw your attention to the Royal Parks Half Marathon on October 12th, which wends its way through Hyde Park, Green Park, St. James's Park, and Kensington Palace Gardens, and is bound to be a beautiful, if somewhat soggy, run.  Too leafy?  How about the Run to the Beat Half Marathon on October 5?  Its organizers claim that live music will be scientifically selected and played throughout the course specifically to boost your performance.  Sounds a bit dubious to me, but what do I know?  Best of luck to everyone taking part, and maybe I'll see you out there!

Opening Night

Joyce DiDonato kicked off a new season at the Wigmore last night, singing a blend of Vivaldi, Chausson, Turina, Copeland, and Gershwin that offered enough variety to appease even the most raging case of ADD.  She sang well, not surprisingly, and expanded her legacy of charisma with some charming patter and a good-spirited zinger having to do with Judy Garland and her minions.  The mezzo is one of many fine performers penciled in for an almost unbelievably good Wigmore season.  The phrase spoiled for choice comes to mind.  Check here if you don't believe me.