Friday Quickie: The Beginning is the End

Well, Gustav (and Mrs. Gustav and new! baby Gustav) are moving across the country; Empiricus is mired in grading undergraduate theory exercises (heh).

So I guess it's up to me...suckers.

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Sometimes things are over before they even get started. And I'm not even thinking about titles. (For once.)

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra Review: A palpable connection to Mendelssohn and Beethoven
Ronni Reich, The Star-Ledger (nj.com), 2/26/2010

With more than 250 years of music-making to its legacy, it is no surprise that the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra brings with it a real, unshakable sense of history.

250 is, indeed, a lot of years for a legacy...to have...to...it.

Er. With?

SPCO reinvents Bach with a barn-dance vibe
Rob Hubbard, Twin Cities Pioneer Press, 11/18/2010

Have you ever gone to a classical concert where a hoedown broke out?

I've been to classical concerts in lots of places. It's totally conceivable that a hoedown has broken out in one or more of them at some point (Copland notwithstanding).

Review: Symphony's 'Requiem Mass" reveals plenty
Bruce Miller, Sioux City Journal, 11/14/2010

With Charles Ives' “The Unanswered Question,” [conductor Ryan] Haskins played with lighting, dabbled with educating and teased with staging.

That's a lot of with. I like the parallel construction and everything, but the first with doesn't do what it's trying to do. If only we had perfectly good English prepositions such as in or during! Ah, but that's a little nit-picky. At least we're past the first sentence.

The piece may not have been an appetizing first course,

It may not? Does that mean it may have? Or that it wasn't? Or is it just casual degradation of the merest morsel of modernism?

Well, at least there's a food metaphor. Let's see how that plays out.

...but it said plenty about the music director's desire to do more than classical music's greatest hits.

Ah, not so much. Oh, well.

Okay, wait. Back up.

The piece may not have been an appetizing first course, but it said plenty about the music director's desire to do more than classical music's greatest hits.

Ah, very clever. By omitting the obviously necessary -- and therefore unnecessary -- verb "perform," "play," or "program" between more than and classical, the writer shrewdly comments on the stolid state of over-programming standard concert repertoire. Subtle.

The work was designed to address the questions of existence.

I...okay. Maybe? Or even: probably. But why bust that out in the middle of this particular paragraph?

Ah, but it's more clever wordsmithing; a seemingly out-of-place and perhaps profound interjection paralleling the brassy interjections in the Ives. Well played.

It featured an offstage trumpet, a simmering set of strings and a quartet of jarring flutes.

This is true.

By anyone's standards, it was odd, but provocative.

By my standards, there are two too many commas in that last bit, but that's merely a subjective point of style.

However.

By anyone's standards, Ives' Unanswered Question is odd but provocative...if it's nineteen-oh-freakin'-six.

Just sayin'.

I feel that I have been negligent, so here is a picture that is fun to look at.

Figure 1: Burl Ives is/was not Charles Ives.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Arguments, Agreements, Advice, Answers, Articulate Announcements

Minnesota Orchestra review: Finns deliver Sibelius' work with authority

Rob Hubbard, Twin Cities Pioneer Press, 2/25/2010

No American feels about a classical composer the way that Finns feel about Jean Sibelius.

Hear that, Americans? NO AMERICAN feels this way . You can’t even know. Rob Hubbard (who was presumably born Roope Huuskonen) knows you don’t know. So don’t fucking pretend. He’s all over that shit.

That said, this silly assertion might be true considering most Americans can’t name a native-born composer other than John Williams.

Their attachment to his music is so profound that Sibelius has created nothing less than the soundtrack to their national identity.

The attribution of agency here is confusing; it sounds like they loved him (dude: so much!) and therefore [i.e. not because] he wrote them a bunch of music.

Also: does the American national identity have a soundtrack? (I’d like to submit Spinal Tap's "Gimme Some Money", but I'd love to hear reader suggestions in the comments.)

There should have been more Finnish-Americans at Minneapolis' Orchestra Hall on Wednesday night.

Roope Huuskonen is judging you, Finno-American Twin Cities-area residents. Can’t you be bothered to come hear some freakin’ Sibelius? Come. On.

As it was, the stage was lined with Finnish-born musicians: conductor Osmo Vanska on the podium, two vocal soloists from the Finnish National Opera up front, and the 60 men of the YL Male Voice Choir at the back.

Voice Choirs are my favorite kind of choir. I don’t, however, know what “YL” stands for. I’m gonna go with “Yummy Lips” for now. “Yummy Lips Male Voice Choir” has a nice ring to it.

They gathered to perform Sibelius' sprawling "Kullervo," a "symphonic poem" inspired by Finland's "Kalevala" legend.

Could you jam any more quotation marks into that sentence? (I get the sense that Roope thinks it’s something other than a symphonic poem.)

But it was an encore of Sibelius' "Finlandia" — and a rare opportunity to hear a choir sing its reverent verses — that likely will stay longest with those who stayed to hear it.

Objection! Speculation.

By that time, the Orchestra Hall house was only about a fifth full, but it was a disappointing turnout to begin with, especially since this concert was a warm-up for a Monday night performance at New York's storied Carnegie Hall.

Yeah, that is surprising. “Hey, everyone! Come hear our warm-up! ‘Cause we’re goin’ to New York to do the real thing! And, um, you won’t be there!”

And at which Carnegie Hall will they be playing? That’s right: storied Carnegie Hall.

Recent visits there by Vanska and the orchestra have produced lusty ovations and rave reviews, much of it in response to their exceptional way with Sibelius. Whether "Kullervo" will produce the same reaction remains to be seen.

Really? Since when is time linear?

It's an epic work, but an early one for Sibelius, with the 26-year-old composer finding his voice…

Figure 1: Sibelius in Vienna, 1891 (age 26).

…but not yet articulating himself as impressively as in ensuing years.

Figure 2: Late Sibelius, circa 1950.

It bears the weighty sense of import and evocative scene setting the composer inherited from one of his heroes, Anton Bruckner.

Bruckner, eh? That also explains his brevity and genial lightheartedness.

But there's a jarring abruptness to his mood swings, his musical arcs not as refined as they would come to be.

This is not true of most composers, whose refinement and mastery tend to diminish with age and experience.

The work also serves a reminder of why Sibelius hasn't gone down as a great writer of vocal music,

And why is that? Is it...because he's unjustly neglected as a vocal composer?

[waits]

No? Nothing? Nice. Lettin' me down here, Roope.

…but the soloists and choir were nevertheless outstanding. Soprano Paivi Nisula delivered the aria upon which the drama of "Kullervo" turns with tremendous power. And the choir navigated the work's widely varied dynamics with precision and clarity.

(Talk, talk, talk. It's only talk.)

Perhaps Sibelius is in the blood of all Finnish musicians, but this group's understanding of him sounds quite deep.

Ah, Roope, you’ve given yourself away. Only a Finn could have heard the depth of their understanding.