Compelling Backstory Explains Everything

I personally believe that music can (and most likely should) be enjoyed simply as a musical experience. However, I understand that some people get great enjoyment from extra-musical information. The life of the composer, the circumstances or inspiration for a particular piece can indeed provide a context that enhance our enjoyment of a musical performance. There's no doubting that...but it's not everything, right?

Review: Grand Rapids Symphony's Classical Series concert features glowing performances, low notes
Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk, The Grand Rapids Press, October 30, 2010

Sometimes knowing the backstory means everything.

Sometimes not. I guess it depends on what you mean by "everything". Or by "knowing".

The Grand Rapids Symphony's Classical Series concerts this weekend in DeVos Performance Hall has several.

Backstories? Can't wait!

For openers, the titles to the pieces can be misleading.

Misleading titles? You're suggesting that composers misled audiences?

figure misleading: Not me.

Plus, how much of a backstory is a misleading title anyway?

But you've got my attention...I'm racking my brain to think of a title I consider misleading. Maybe...Four Saints in Three Acts by Virgil Thomson (which contains some 20 saints in four acts).

What egregious examples of misleadingly titled compositions did the Grand Rapids Symphony perform?

There's nothing pathetic about Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony.

[smacks forehead]

Its composer dubbed it "passionate," which the French translated as "pathetique," and there it stuck.

Seriously, you don't have to speak French to know that is a pathetic translation.

"Pathetique", in French, denotes a feeling of passion and sorrow, and while sharing the same root (and being a literalistic translation), is not really a direct equivalent to the English concept of pathetic as "miserably or contemptibly inadequate". Context people. Context.

By the way: Great. Backstory.

Richard Strauss took his title "Also sprach Zarathustra" from a philosophical treatise by Friedrich Nietzsche, and thankfully little else.

Well, other than the inspiration, the movement titles, and the general narrative of the piece.

In a letter to Otto Florsheim (I assume of Florsheim Shoes fame), Strauss wrote:

“I did not intend to write philosophical music or to portray in music Nietzsche’s great work. I meant to convey by means of music an idea of the development of the human race from its origin, through the various phases of its development, religious and scientific, up to Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman. The whole symphonic poem is intended as my homage to Nietzsche’s genius, which found its greatest exemplification in his book, Thus Spake Zarathustra.”

But what I want to know is why this is "thankfully" so? It's a difficult read, yet Nietzsche created an original and radical philosophical which sent shockwaves throughout religious communities. Not to mention it's the book which contains the famous maxim, "God is dead." Whether or not you subscribe to any of the philosophies of Nietzsche, he is significant figure in literature and philosophy. How weak must one's beliefs be to feel threatened by a book written over a 120 years ago.

figure same name: They share the same name, but little else...thankfully.

But again, I guess the title's misleading. I guess.

Actually, no...wait, it's not misleading at all, since it tell us exactly (with no room for mistake) the source/impetus for it's composition.

Great backstory, though. I really feel like I know everything about the piece.

Tchaikovsky conducted his premiere 117 years ago last Thursday; Strauss conducted his premiere 114 years ago next month.

You're right. The titles don't give any reference to when the premieres took place. That is misleading.

For an audience of 1,048 on Friday, music director David Lockington led glowing performances of both major works, performed this month in part to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the opening of DeVos Hall in October 1980. Both were part of the orchestra's first season in the 2,400-seat auditorium.

Seems fitting. By the way...another great backstory. I wonder what tragedy befell those of the 1048 in attendance who were not aware of this important backstory.

figure backstory: Wait, is this the right backstory?

But thinking of misleading titles...your review title suggested something about "low notes". Did something go wrong at the concert?

No guest stars were on the program, apart from a lot of extra players and plenty of very, very low notes.

Uh.

Strauss' tone poem, famous from the opening minutes used for Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," is an expansive, imaginative portrayal of the evolution of man.

As opposed to the text by Nietzsche?

And the obligatory reference to 2001 here...really? Does that count as backstory, or just a pointless aside?

Where Strauss' audience was fascinated by the technological advances allowing man to overcome nature, today's audiences are more interested in the technological advances allowing them to reach out and touch someone else, nature be damned.

O-kay. Where are you going with this?

Thus, the importance of the nine or so themes don't always resonate.

Not sure I follow. We have facebook instead of electric light, and therefore, the musical themes don't resonate? Are you sure?

Nor does the dichotomy of two different keys, B-flat for humanity, C major for the universe, seem as jarring.

Because of technology? Cellphones are the reason B-flat and C don't seem jarring?

Wow. You totally understand the last 100 years of music. Not to mention the advent of radio and television. I mean I just love how NBC has always insisted that every jingle used in advertisements be in the key of G to avoid any cosmic disharmony.

Timing and balance is everything in the famous introduction. The former was elusive, the latter better.

The balance was better than elusive? That's quite the compliment.

But I thought knowing the backstory was everything? And if the timing and balance are everything, can both things be true at the same time?

I'm going to chalk up this last one to hyperbole...for now...

"The Great Yearning" theme expanded lushly. The conclusion of "The Convalescent" shook mortar loose in the walls. The solo in "The Dance Song" was deftly handled by concertmaster James Crawford.

So, what's the backstory here? If not the Nietzsche text, then what??? It is everything you know.

The "Song of the Night Wanderer" at end floated away unresolved, as intended.

So, the performance was apt? By the way, how misleading were these thematic titles. The image of "The Convalescent" doesn't usually bring to mind building code violations. And "The Dance Song" doesn't even begin to tell me it's for a soloist. Maybe you were on to something.

Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony was a tale of unrequited love, and the power of that theme hasn't dimmed a bit.

Yes, unrequited love could never be thought of as "pathetic" or sorrowful...or the sixth.

It's also a well-known war-horse that demands attention to detail.

As opposed to new, unfamiliar music which, well, no one knows what the hell it's supposed to sound like, and therefore deserves no attention to detail.

Lockington took the long view, not giving overt attention to the big moments, but leaving himself elbow room for later.

Sounds rather unsatisfying. Aren't the big moments, you know, the climactic moments of which the rest of the piece is constantly building? And "later"? Big moments mostly come at the end, no?

Also, "long view"? It's a symphony, not policies to avoid the complete collapse of civilization. Any view that looks at least an hour into the future should be adequate. One might even suggest you take it in four smaller parts.

figure long view: Taking the long view to parking at the airport. The hourly lot just doesn't make a lot of sense for my week long trip.

Somber at the outset, the famous second theme unfolded as a sunrise of its own, Lockington moving it along nicely, the orchestra responding rapturously.

Rapturous sunrise...sounds like a fabulous second theme indeed. But since we're saving elbow room for later, it's only a sunrise and not a supernova, right?

Some syncopated passages were slippery,...

No worries...it's a common problem. I've found that a little pine tar, or at least some rosin, goes a long way.

...but Lockington drew powerful sonorities from the strings, ending the long opening with a satisfying sigh.

Slippery, but powerful sonorities, ending in a sigh. Are any of these things "everything"?

But before you answer that...it's time for some Detritus Review Madlibs!

Tonight's entry comes to us from the home box office in Grand Rapid, Michigan -- discussing the third movement of the Tchaikovsky 6th Symphony, Mr. Kaczmarczyk wrote:

The _____ third movement was a(n) _____ moment of _____, _____ wrapped around _____, all on the road to a(n) _____, _____ conclusion.

fluidity
triumphant
magical
precision
upbeat
lovingly
brassy

I'm liking these options...so let's try...

The upbeat third movement was a magical moment of fluidity, lovingly wrapped around precision, all on the road to a triumphant, brassy conclusion.

Ooh. That's nice. But...it could be...

The brassy third movement was triumphant moment of precision, lovingly wrapped around fluidity, all on the road to a magical, upbeat conclusion.

It's tough call...let's just say they both work.

If some of the audiences don't applaud here, you know you've done it wrong.

Or perhaps those audiences who didn't clap are just stupid...did you ever consider that?

Friday's certainly did, and they were right.

Did what? Right?

Oh, they clapped. At least we know they're not stupid -- who doesn't know that you're not not suppose to clap between movements during certain symphonies?

Anguish poured out in the heartbreaking finale with its despondent chorale in the lower brass.

Again, I think just how right you are that the title "Pathetique" is just so misleading. And how that backstory was everything.

Lockington on the podium was visibly distraught afterward.

Really...but why?

It helps to know the backstory.

Yes, that may help, given that I can't divine the why from that one sentence.

Nine days after conducting the premiere, Tchaikovsky was dead.

I see. The symphony killed Tchaikovsky, and therefore Lockington feared for his own life. You're totally right...cholera couldn't have possibly been the culprit. If titles of popular novels tell me anything of the world, it's that cholera is a time of love, not death.

figure cholera: I've always thought that cholera would make a great backdrop for a love story.

He was 53.

Ahem. He was 53 and a half.

figure knowing: And now we know!

Titles for Sale

And without further ado, here’s the title in question found atop a recent piece by David Patrick Stearns:

Itzhak Perlman a winner at Resorts

Figure 1. Foreshadowing the premise that the house always has the advantage

There are several things we should keep in mind as we go along which will be helpful in order to assess the efficacy of today’s title:

1) The Resorts is a casino-hotel in Atlantic City (A classical casino concert?)
2) Itzhak Perlman wins something (What did he win?)
3) He wins it at Resorts (Presumably, as opposed to somewhere else)

Fantastic! Now we can look at the review, which is pretty okay, not that there aren’t issues.

Musically, he played a medium-weight program - Leclair, Beethoven, Stravinsky - little different from what you'd hear at the Kimmel Center.

No kidding! I took it upon myself to check out the program for the next Philadelphia Orchestra concert and, well, there’s certainly some similarity: Brahms D minor Piano Concerto; Franck D minor Symphony; and Claude Vivier Orion. I don’t know what this says about the integrity of the orchestra’s programming, since casinos are essentially scams. But, hell, someone is doing it right.

Preconcert Muzak was Brahms' Symphony No. 1.

Muzaked Brahms? Wonderful beyond description. Ugh.

The big leap for Atlantic City, however, wasn't pop vs. classical, but singer vs. instrumentalist. Headliners are almost always singers (even if the voice happens to belong to Joan Jett). Nobody could recall a purely instrumental artist headlining recently in Atlantic City.

Why bring Joan Jett into question? This seems more like an unnecessary value judgment, to me. Is she less of a singer somehow?

More pressing, however, what is the Resorts up to? Why bring in someone who doesn’t fit the previous model for success?

So who was there? As I learned from chatting up those around me, many were from the immediate area: a local music teacher who has loved Perlman for years...

Also known as: someone who has never stepped inside a casino before. (Just a guess, but local music teachers probably don’t have a large amount of disposable income).

...a small-business owner who had caught [Perlman] on PBS...

PBS watchers aren’t generally attracted to bright lights and shiny things, or are they?

...and people who applauded between movements, suggesting a crossover/fringe crowd, but one that was ultimately more attentive than your typical concert audience.

Newbies, diversity, and attention: Hooray! It’s a veritable melting pot of fresh money!

The idea, according to casino officials, was to attract a different clientele, and what arrived was people who probably would have been just as happy to hear Perlman at, say, the Glassboro Center for the Performing Arts.

How’d the Resorts lure them in, then?

The difference is that this fringe audience probably wouldn't have known about the Atlantic City event without Resorts' marketing - and all its billboards.

Okay. It’s not like our symphonies don’t spend a bigillion on advertising, right? This is the norm. However, the catch was:

The net had to be cast wide to fill a theater with listeners willing to pay up to $125 for any violinist, and indeed, I talked to those who had driven in from Montgomery County.

That’s an expensive meatball.

And rather than traveling through suburban byways, you simply had to navigate the dense thickets of King Kong Cash slot machines between the parking garage and the theater.

Figure 2. “Twas Beast that bankrupted your future”

What David forgets to mention is that on byways you aren’t tempted to risk your kid’s college fund. He also doesn’t mention that the distance from the garage to the theater is roughly one-quarter of a mile—and the dense thickets of slot machines, which are designed to funnel you past places the casino wants you to pass, is akin to McDonald’s saying, “Yeah, the hamburgers are bad for you, but that’s why we have salads.”

So with the right marketing, most any fine classical artist,

Whoa there, partner: “most any fine classical artist”? Not terrible, just yuck.

So with the right marketing, most any fine classical artist, in theory, could work here. But I wonder if anyone else (perhaps cellist Yo-Yo Ma?) could truly fill the place.

I think that’s a good question, delving into issues about the relationship between marketing and the perceived quality of the product. But I thought this was a review?

Perlman's public identification level is unique among non-operatic classical figures. Though his visibility is nothing close to what it was, the name still has marketing power.

The violinist has long had a particular magnetism that makes audiences meet him more than halfway. Whether he's having a good night or a bad one - he's 64, an age when violinists are well into the winding-down phase - audiences listen to him more closely than they do other violinists, and thus take in more of the music at hand.

He’s still a moneymaker: check. He’s past his prime: check. He played a concert and I wrote a review about it: blank.

And Perlman had a very good night.

He...

He won a good night?! Though past his prime, he had a good night?! No senior moments? No medical scares? Please clear this up, David.

His playing has been through some bad patches in recent years, but technically speaking, he was secure and fluent.

Technically speaking, sure. But interpretive?

The first half pleasantly consisted of Leclair's Violin Sonata in D major and Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 7 (Op. 30 No. 2), and though Perlman's cultivated musical responses didn't feel so fresh, the ever-engaged pianist Rohan De Silva kept your ears constantly pricked.

...but the pianist played well.

Later, Perlman recalled his own glory days in Stravinsky's Suite Italienne (from the composer's quasi-baroque ballet Pulcinella); his gleaming tone with the light sandpaper-ish tang was back in full during Stravinsky's most lyrical sections. His most inspired moments involved expressive fingerslides, usually the province of violinists from the old, old days. Good for him! Fine with me.

Meh. I don’t have any problems with the concert assessment, even though it received a disproportionate amount of space. But it’s the disproportionate amount of space that raises questions.

To me, this reads like a plain-faced plug (see Comedy of Errata), but worse. Recall the title: “Perlman a winner at Resorts.” Really? Was he a winner? Did the past-his-prime, old, old school violinist really emerge as triumphant winner from this endeavor?

Perlman left with his integrity intact.

He also left with a nice paycheck. But it’s not exactly glowing, is it? If anything, he won the right to leave with his integrity. That’s all. It’s printed right there in the review.

The audience left the near-full 1,300-seat Superstar Theater seemingly thrilled [...]

So, maybe the audience won, then?

Or did the Resorts come out the victor? They filled a large venue, probably made a nice little profit. But more than that, they got 1,300 local people into the casino, people who otherwise might not have been tempted to go, filtered them through the slots and other entertainments, and said, “Go!”.

Figure 3. Sure it pays out 35:1, but you have a 2.63% of hitting it, or 38:1 chance of making your money back

Angst (in (and/or despite) the Canon)

Yesterday I stumbled upon a very interesting review with lots to discuss.

Wayne Lee Gay, Dallas Morning News, Nouyuki Tsujii disappoints with too-familiar program at Bass Hall, September 23, 2009

Really, it's a pretty thoughtful and well-written piece, with particular musical criticisms of the sort that are the specific and special purview of piano critic geeks. I appreciate this, since discerning super-subtle coloristic nuances or finer points of pedal techniques in piano playing isn't really my focus.

Obviously bent on inducing mass depression among Fort Worth music lovers, 2009 Cliburn co-gold medalist Nouyuki Tsujii dragged out one overworked warhorse after another Tuesday in the opening concert of the 2009-10 Cliburn Concert series at Bass Performance Hall.

This is an imaginative and colorful opening, and I really liked it. The implication, though, is that boring old standard repertoire is depressing, which is misleading.

Figure 1: [Probably] Tsujii

That's not what this review is about. However, a cursory examination, I suppose, might lead some, er, temporally-challenged Feature Article Title Generator-Person to title this article Nouyuki Tsujii disappoints with too-familiar program, which is sort of like Ann Coulter banner ads on progressive websites owing to the derisive mention of said pundit's name on the page.

Presenting an evening devoted to extremely well-known works is a questionable strategy for any concert artist.

Agreed. What's unsaid, perhaps, is that this is also, or perhaps even more, a questionable strategy for any arts management concern, but that's for another time.

First, it invites comparison with great performers, past and present, who have interpreted the same pieces, and Tsujii is clearly not ready to play on the same field with some of them.

Figure 2: John Field, whose name is, curiously, uncapitalized, and, further, is not mentioned in the program. Huh.

A little harsh for a Van Cliburn medalist, but fair. What else?

Second, it causes an artist to neglect exploring and presenting less familiar but often equally great music, old or new.

Also a valid complaint, if somewhat understandable for a new talent cutting his teeth on a performance career. Not everyone's going to specialize in new music, of course, and learning new material for a recital is much harder and more time-consuming than performing music you already know.

Those aspects aside, performing Beethoven's Moonlight and Appassionata sonatas back to back is a bad idea for any pianist.

They're long? Difficult? Or (as the title of the article insinuates) too well-known?

They are two of the composer's darkest creations.

They're...depressing?

Played one after the other, they deliver almost unrelieved gloom.

Gloom, and also: arpeggios. But mostly gloom.

After the intermission, Tsjuii deepened the effect by following up with Chopin's equally pessimistic Ballade in G minor.

Man, that guy must hate music! Or...the audience! Maybe his home was forclosed upon, or his 401k's a shambles. Or his sympathies with the plight of economically suffering and war-weary Americans led to programming that reflects the overcast mood of the time. Or perhaps he's clinically depressed.

Or not.

In a second half devoted entirely to Chopin, Tsujii adhered to a bleakly monotonous tonal quality and an often overly heavy left hand.

See, normally this is the sort of piano-specific criticism that I appreciate, but now it sounds like his tonal palate reflected his overall dour mood, and also (cleverly and recursively!) the entire program.

A set of lively mazurkas from Opus 24 provided the unlikely high point of the evening,...

Unlikely? Why?

...largely because they lend themselves well to Tsujii's almost nonchalant approach.

The mazurkas are boring, which, I guess, when compared to Gloomy Old Man Beethoven, is downright cheerful?

In the two nocturnes from Opus 27, he continued to avoid any real variety of color.

Again, a fair enough assessment, insightful even. But in the context of the review, it sounds like his tone suffered from the same ennui as the program.

The final work on the recital, Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise, emerged with workaday blandness.

More again still...

In response to an enthusiastic but far from unanimous ovation,

Translation: Our reviewer wasn't clapping.

Tsujii brought out Chopin's Berceuse, the almost invincible charm of which nearly succumbed to the pianist's unwillingness to explore any variety of tone, and the Revolutionary etude, presented with cold speed and bravura.

Nice.

Figure 3: Chopin. While sickly and boring, at least he wasn't all depressing like Beethoven.

Lastly, in retrospect, the title completely misses the point of the article. Woo! Go Dallas Morning News Feature Headline Writer Person!

It turns out that it's not tired old warhorses that are depressing and disappointing. It's Beethoven!

Good times.