Noisy Thoughts

I'm sitting here looking out the window at clouds and some sky, lots of green plants, houses built in traditional Black Forest style and wondering, "How does new music relate to all of this?"  I played Handel last night and I will be playing Bach tonight through Sunday night.  It is a bigger stretch than I'd like it to be to get to 20th century music.  However, let's get to it.

The first group I would like to present is  Relâche, a new music group that has been playing together for around 30 years in Philadelphia.  When I lived there, I attended a number of their concerts when I lived there because I knew some of the people involved.  They commission a number of new works each year and have released 7 CDs one of which was nominated for a Grammy.

Then there is the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra that is based in (can you guess?) San Francisco.  They play a wide variety of music ranging from the early 20th century to current works.  Many of the composers whose works they play perform in the orchestra.  The information on their website stresses that they do not perform "museum music" and they like to do concerts that involve new music, the way in which the "museum music" was first performed.

John Adams first came to my attention when I heard Short Ride in a Fast Machine.  I still love that piece with all of its energy and vitality.  One of his most famous pieces is the opera, Nixon in China.  He still writes pieces of imagination often based on real events.  His website includes his blog on events past and present.

All of these websites are designed to promote the composers/performers and their works.  If the web didn't exist, all information would have to be passed the way it was in the past - by word of mouth.  I knew of Relâche because I worked with someone who was in it.  I knew John Adams because I heard one of his pieces on the radio.  I never would have known of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra unless they came to the place where I was living.  It's great to be able to find out these things and to hear excerpts (without buying the record, tape, CD, etc) and to discover which ones we like and which ones not.  Welcome to the 21st Century!

Sanity - What Are They?

What keeps me sane?

That question presumes that I am sane, well, at least sort of sane.  And you could probably get some debate on that question if you really wanted to.  However . . .

I have discovered one thing and that is that as I get older, I worry a LOT less about sanity and more about am I cultivating the properly curmudgeonly attitude.  So, some of my choices may be a bit unconventional, and that doesn't really bother me.

When I was in high school, the Beatles were still together, but not for long, Simon and Garfunkel were still on top, and the Tijuana Brass were flying high.  I got to see the TJB once at the Ohio State Fair, which managed to pull in top acts for the grandstand shows.  But my favorite group of the time was a group called Harpers Bizarre.  They had a number of hit songs including "Chattanooga Choo-choo" and the "59th Street Bridge Song" aka "Feelin' Groovy" (by Simon & Garfunkel).  They also recorded a number of Randy Newman songs, back before Randy Newman became famous in his own name.  This is one of those songs,

"Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear".  I love his satire!  (And Harper's Bizarre sang it - even better!)

I also love jazz.  I discovered Dianne Reeves a number of years back when she was promoting her album "The Calling".  One of the songs on it was this one, George & Ira Gershwin's "Fascinating Rhythm".  I love not only the arrangement, but the fact that I can understand every word she sings!  What a singer!!!!!

I also grew to love Bob James' music from watching "Taxi", one of the greatest TV shows ever.  This is good music to get mellow, "Angela".

Lastly, but not leastly, I got a love of Bach and organ music.  I actually took organ lessons for a few years after I graduated from college, but it definitely helps to be able to play the piano first.  However, I have seen Virgil Fox, Wilbur Held, Keith Chapman, Peter Richard Conte, Alexander Schreiner, and Richard Elliott in concert on various organs (including the Wanamaker organ and the Mormon Tabernacle organ).  I actually got to play the Tabernacle organ once and didn't make a fool of myself!

At any rate, I am putting in a recording of Richard Elliott playing the Tabernacle organ.  Rick is a friend of mine and I knew him when he was still a student at Curtis.  He is now the Principal Organist of the Tabernacle organ.

And then to finish things off, I am including one of my favorite organ works, Louis Vierne's "Carillon de Westminster".  This is a fairly popular work and not terribly difficult, so it is played and recorded often.  My favorite recording is one made by Alexander Schreiner in the 1970's on the Tabernacle organ.  Schreiner studied with Vierne and Schreiner played his works often.  Unfortunately, the album is out of print and has never been reissued on CD.  So, you will get the next best performance that I could find.

So, sanity - well, it's a bit overrated, I think, but I guess I prefer dealing with sane people than not-sane people.  In addition to music, I like walking in the woods with Jim or alone.  I spent many, many hours in the woods growing up.  It was my place to go when I wanted to talk to myself and see how I was doing with life.  Time spent in a canoe on the water is also wonderful.  Watching clouds  change as they go in the sky.  Being by myself in my house, putting on favorite music, turning the volume up, and dancing, if I feel like it.  Solitude.  Quiet.

Oh, and the title of this posting is a play on a quote from a book I read when I was a kid.  The actual quote was "Brahms - what are they?" so it was a short hop to "Sanity - what are they?"  

Art not necessarily with Music

Art!  Ah, that most elusive of topics.  (OK, it's a cliche.)

I do have definite tastes in art and have spent many hours in art museums.  When I was in junior high and high school, I would go to the library and check out books of art works and pour over them.  Columbus had an art museum, but it wasn't very big and didn't have a lot of the types of paintings that I liked.  It wasn't until I moved to Philadelphia that I got to indulge my passion.

In no particular order, one piece that I like is not a painting, but a sculpture.  I don't know that this was the exact piece that I saw, but it is very similar.  One evening shortly after my son was born, we visited the museum and went into the Medieval art section.  There were a number of sculptures of the Virgin Mary with Child and most of them obviously hadn't had real models as they all had women holding a child off to their side.  Then I found one little, unglorified statue that captured a mother and child perfectly.

This woman has held a child on her hip, which is what all mothers do.  And she had her hip jutted out to one side to rest the weight of the child on it rather than hold the child to the side with all of the weight solely on her arms.  This particular piece is by an unknown French artist in the 14th century.  What I like about this object is its realism.  It's real life.  This woman really lived.

A painter that I discovered in high school is El Greco (The Greek).  His real name was Doménikos Theotokópoulos and he was actual from Crete, not Greece.  He spent most of his life painting in Spain where he got his nickname.  Most of his paintings were religious in nature, either of saints or portraits of church officials.  The painting below is from 1607-1614 and is entitled The Visitation.  Neither of the figures are identified, but it seems to me that there is love and compassion and solace here and maybe even healing and it feels peaceful.

In comparison with that is the painting below entitled "A View of Toledo".  The first time I saw it, I fell in love and had a copy hanging in my room for years.  It is one of the few landscapes that El Greco painted and this was done around 1597.  What always attracted me to this was the raw emotion in the sky - storm clouds at the ready, but still with blue sky peeking through.    The painting hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and no reproduction can do it justice.

I love the Impressionist school of painting.  Just about any of the artists would do as an example, but I have always particularly like Renoir's "Girl With a Watering Can".  She is so innocent and self-possessed.  And the level of detail is amazing, also.  The lace on her dress is obviously lace and not just painted blobs giving the impression of lace.  I find this a very tranquil, domestic painting and it's real, too.  I've seen this little girl any number of times, all dressed up in her good clothes and being a little girl.

I also love the work of Georgia O'Keeffe.  She spent much of her time on her Ghost Ranch outside of Taos, New Mexico.  While I haven't visited the Ghost Ranch, I have been to Taos and the surrounding region and this painting captures the starkness of the southwestern desert and its vibrant colors.  It shows a desert canyon in ways words could never capture.  I feel like I can jump into the picture and be in that canyon.

I also love the watercolors of Andrew Wyeth.  This painting is of the Brandywine River valley near Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, where Wyeth lived.  It is one of the most beautiful places on earth and magical.  It is an area steeped in history - this house is colonial and probably saw the Battle of Brandywine during the Revolution.  What I like about this is the tranquility and beauty of the place - you just know there is a fire in the fireplace and the family is gathered around it sharing the warmth.

Lastly,  (at last), I will finish my mini-exhibition with another 3-dimensional piece, "Ghost" by Alexander Calder.  This mobile hangs in the Great Stair Hall in the Philadelphia Museum.  It floats gently on the air and the title is very apt.  It makes no noise, but moves gracefully in the air currents produced by visitors walking under it.  It, like most of the other art works in this blog, is very peaceful.  If it is indeed a ghost, it is a friendly one and offers no threat to the observer.

If there is a common theme that collects all of these works together, it is peaceful domesticity.  All of these works say something about tranquility and life with family.  The virgin is at peace with her child and is lovingly caring for him.  "The Visitation" conveys comfort and solace.  The Renoir is the kind of scene we would wish to see with our children (or grandchildren).  Georgia O'Keeffe's cliffs are not threatening, but a statement of majesty and beauty.  Wyeth's watercolors show a world where opposition exists (there is snow on the ground), but there is safety and security within the strong stone walls.  Even things we would normally fear, the storm in Toledo and Calder's "Ghost" are not threatening, but are another part of life.  The storm clouds may threaten the town, but the town itself is tranquil.  And the "Ghost" floats freely above us, reacting to our movements, not causing them.

Enjoy!

Blog Number 1 (original, aren't I?)

One of the forms of recent music that I have come to love of late is the Argentinian tango as presented by Astor Piazzolla.  It is truly music to stir the soul.  

Like any other form of music, it exists in many different forms, both in the notes used and in the performance thereof.  For a project for another class, I looked at how some of Piazzolla's music was taken and performed by others.  Some of what I found captured the spirit of the tango wonderfully and some totally missed the point although even a poor performance of a good piece of music manages to convey something of what the composer wished to say.

This video is from the movie "The Tango Lesson" and captures the spirit of the tango.  The music is the Libertango of Piazzolla.  The sex is, well, the tango's.

From the sublime to the not-so-sublime, this is a version by the British singer Grace Jones that falls a bit short to me.  Obviously somebody likes it because the video was made, but the spirit of the tango is lost.

It is amazing to me how often people take music and turn it to their own ends.  While I believe that the wishes of the composer are to be taken into consideration and adhered to as much as possible, sometimes a performer can bring something to a performance that transcends the notes on the page.  The tangos of Piazzolla have a uniqueness that don't fare well under the Muzak treatment.  They need to remain tangos for the spirit which was written into them to be conveyed to the listener.  Granted, there are those who enjoy Muzak, but they probably don't dance the tango in their spare time.  Even so, the beauty of the melodic lines and the richness of the harmonies comes across.


Another version of the Libertango was performed by YoYo Ma for the soundtrack of "The Tango Lesson".  This version is the truest to the recording I have of Piazzolla performing the work.  Of course, the bandoneon part is pushed to the background a bit so that Ma's cello can shine, but overall, it is very close to authentic PIazzolla.

Finally, for one last version, which is definitely true to the tango, but is a little different.  The tango is all about sex and this version holds true to that with a little humor added in.  Plus the exquisite imagination and skill of the performers makes this version sparkle.

Music is more than music.  The good stuff conveys feelings and emotions, ideas and conclusions and can catch the listener up in it.  While a bad performance can hinder a listener's enjoyment of the music, a good performance makes it easier to get the point the composer was trying to make.  And composers usually do have a point to be made.

Thus endeth the first blog post.  Hope it made sense!