Posts Tagged ‘Cleveland Orchestra’

Back to Severance After Three Years

Friday, January 6th, 2023

In February 2020, I went to see the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall. I expected to go again in May 2020, but we know what happened there.

Somehow, I skipped the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 seasons completely, making me officially out of the habit. The first year was certainly out of good sense: I wasn’t eligible for a COVID vaccine until mid-2021, and wasn’t really teaching much in person until Fall 2021: I’m still not back in the classroom as much as I was in Fall 2019, and wouldn’t be surprised if I never am. As well, Becky has been back at work, and scheduling a concert for just myself has been tricky: we don’t refer to taking care of our own kids as “babysitting,” but solo parenting for optional reasons is not something we like to stick each other with if we don’t have to.

The kids and I drove all the way to Cincinnati in June to hear the Cincinnati Symphony perform my Florence Price arrangement, but otherwise, I haven’t been to many things that I wasn’t specifically involved in putting on.

So, last night, I ended the drought, and went to hear the Cleveland Orchestra perform works by James Oliverio, Haydn, and Nielsen, under the baton of Alan Gilbert. Here’s the program.

Gilbert has been on my list of conductors to see since he took over the New York Philharmonic in 2009. My impression last night was that he is certainly charming and personable, with real “music director” energy that seems to invite musicians and audiences to trust him. His approach to the last movement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 90, with its multiple false endings, had the audience in more laughter than I think I’ve ever heard at a symphony concert, and he successfully enlisted new concertmaster David Radzynski as accomplice (this was also my first chance to see Radzynski, whose father was on my doctoral committee, in action in the front chair). Coming from the band world, I think I tend to appreciate economy of gesture in a conductor, and this was a part of Gilbert’s approach in a way, but I don’t think in a useful way. The danger with a group such as Cleveland is that they will play the conductor, and I’m not convinced this wasn’t evident last night. I really only noticed one sort of beat from the right hand, which I would characterize as overly staccato, and the left hand seemed to mirror much of the time. Gilbert prefers a grip on the baton that I would find awkward, pointing and jabbing rather than amplifying and clarifying. The “gravitational” beat that I consider to be crucial was lost–and in one of the hammerblows that begin the Nielsen Third Symphony, the result was sloppiness of ensemble rare among Cleveland Orchestra performances.

I met James Oliverio once in graduate school when he came to Columbus for a performance of his first timpani concerto: it must have been 2005 or 2006. I don’t remember going to the performance, only being present for his masterclass, but I remember his affable, easygoing manner, shooting straight with young composers and percussionists, and it doesn’t surprise me at all that he now holds an academic position. That good-naturedness was on full display in the pre-concert talk in an interview by Dr. Emily Laurance. It was also present in Oliverio’s new timpani concerto, Legacy Ascendant, with the solo part taken by Cleveland Orchestra principal timpanist Paul Yancich. Oliverio and Yancich have a decades-long collaboration stemming from their student years at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Legacy Ascendant is a work with a fair amount of heft, and solves the problem of how to make a concerto for timpani in interesting ways. Yancich’s ability to retune the drums (seven of them) between strokes is impressive, and his phrasing allows the instrument to sing, despite the same problems that the piano or the guitar have with the sustain that we expect from a truly lyrical line. One method Oliverio uses for this is to use the cello and bass sections as resonators that hold a note after the timpanist plays it: this works well in slow-to-medium tempo passages, but he wisely avoids it for faster notes. I didn’t feel enough contrast between the three movements, and the promised “groove” in the last movement never seemed to materialize.

The Haydn, and Gilbert’s approach to it, were a pleasant surprise, and the core members of the orchestra played spectacularly in a piece the orchestra last played in 1967. I don’t generally seek out performances of the Classical repertoire when I select Cleveland Orchestra concerts, but I’m always impressed with the results when I happen to hear them.

The main event (at least to me) was Nielsen’s Third Symphony. I discovered this piece on CD in the summer of 1996, when I spent a lot of time listening through my collection, which by that point included Neeme Jarvi’s recording of Nielsen’s symphonies with Gothenberg. I was especially charmed by the Third, with its opening movement, and got as far as checking out the score from the CCM library, where I discovered to my delight that Nielsen indicated that the baritone solo could be performed on trombone and the soprano solo on clarinet (I have to wonder if the piece has ever actually been performed this way). In relistening to the piece and studying the score over the last couple of days, I hear the musical challenges: the long-breathed formal sections, the orchestration that is sometimes too heavy, and a certain harmonic ambiguity. But: it has been a piece I’ve wanted to hear in person for a long time, so I bookmarked this concert.

Gilbert and the Orchestra returned a very solid performance (despite a mishap here and there). The piece rewards the kind of ensemble playing that the Cleveland Orchestra makes a specialty of, while also giving ample opportunities to the principal players. As much as I’ve always loved the first movement, it was the third movement that really shone last night. It’s not quite a scherzo, and Dr. Laurence suggested similarities to Shostakovich, which may be a little premature, but I certainly hear Janacek and Bartok waiting in the wings. A great night for flutist Jessica Sindell, filling in the principal chair.

I’m on the lookout for a concert that will feature recently-appointed principal trombonist Brian Wendel. Of course, Ravel’s Bolero is coming up next month, but as important as that solo is for trombonists, it’s one among the crowd in the work itself. Mozart’s Requiem is on the way, but it’s solo is in the second trombone part, so I wouldn’t expect the principal to play it.

Severance Hall seems to be back to its old self. One disappointment is that, while the autograph manuscript of Mahler’s Second Symphony is on display, it is largely obscured within a box that projects video in front of it, which is somewhat confusing. Last night it was open to a page from the Scherzo with no explanation.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Cleveland Concerts | Comments Closed

A Week of Music

Friday, October 18th, 2019

A quick post so that I can get back to the major project in which I have been immersed.

It has been a busy week for my music and for my experience of music.

A week ago, I awoke in Mattoon, Illinois so that I could drive up the road to Eastern Illinois University for my first Society of Composers conference in five years. I haven’t deliberately stayed away, but timing and location have conspired against me. I was able to enjoy five of the eight concerts, including performances of Daniel Perttu’s preludes for piano, my own Maximum Impact for jazz ensemble, and Kevin Wilson’s cello sonata. My personal highlight of the conference was James Romig’s Still. This hour-long solo piano work, with a very low density of notes, might have lulled me to sleep after a long weekend of driving and conferencing, but quite the opposite–I found the work intriguing and invigorating. The other highlight was getting to spend time with Becky, especially on Friday evening, when we reconnected with Dan Perttu and Magie Smith, who is professor of clarinet at EIU. It was practically a grad school reunion.

We left the conference early so that we could drive back on Saturday because on Sunday, I needed to attend the first Cleveland Composers Guild concert of the season at Cleveland State University. I can’t remember a stronger program, in no small part because of the performers, including Peter Otto and Randy Fusco playing Margi Griebling-Haigh’s Rhapsody and the Cavani Quartet playing Sebastian Birch’s Life in a Day. But of all eight pieces, there were really no duds. The premiere of my song And I Live With the Fiction that I Never Get Mad by Loren Reash-Henz and Ben Malkevitch went off very well, and the lyricist, Janice Reash, was in the audience and quite impressed. I wasn’t quite sure that I liked the piece until I was able to hear a performance of it, and I believe that I will keep it in my catalog, because it really does work well.

An embarrassment of riches, this week, really. Last night I went to hear the Cleveland Orchestra for the second time this season. The “build your own” subscription allowed me to pick exactly the music that I wanted to hear, and I was excited to hear Louis Andriessen’s newish work Agamemnon. Life intervened: conductor Jaap van Zweden was called to his family, and the replacement conductor, Klaus Mäkelä, was presumably unfamiliar with a work premiered by van Zweden. This was disappointing, but I determined that whatever music the orchestra would play would be excellent, and decided to not feel short-changed.

I was not wrong. A lesser orchestra would have thrown a familiar piece onto the program: a Brahms overture or the like, but we were given instead a reasonable replacement: Olivier Messiaen’s little-heard Les Offrandes oubliées. This early work was a revelation–especially the ending, which was reminiscent of Holst’s Neptune. Violinist Augustin Hadelich played Prokovief’s second violin concerto beautifully, although that work is not one of my favorites–there remain only a few violin concerti that really connect with me after all these years. After intermission, Mäkelä’s rendition of Beethoven’s Seventh was splendid: full of the life and vigor central to that work. I hope that he will be engaged again.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Cleveland Concerts, Composing, Personal Reflections, Travels | Comments Closed

Cleveland Orchestra Plays Neuwirth and Mahler

Friday, September 27th, 2019

Last night, September 26, 2019, I returned to the Cleveland Orchestra for the first time in the 2019-2020 season. After the orchestra addressed some of my concerns in personnel and programming, I am, again, for the time being, a subscriber. I particularly appreciated the addition of an option this year to build my own series instead of choosing a curated series and then having to swap out tickets to get to see what I wanted to see.

This was my first encounter with the music of Olga Neuwirth, an Austrian composer less than a decade older than me. Masaot/Clocks without Hands was a fascinating work, and the main reason that I chose the concert: while I love Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, I didn’t expect it to be a completely new experience (more on that to follow). I was able to examine a blurry online perusal score from Ricordi prior to the concert, but there appears to be no commercial recording available, which is unfortunate, as my experience last night suggests that the work would bear repeated listening. A tribute to Mahler, Masaot/Clocks without Hands captures that composer’s eclecticism in very direct ways–a klezmer-type ensemble keeps making appearances in a texture that is otherwise mostly concerned with sound masses and subtle timbral shifts. The look of the score belied the experience (again, I only had access to a tantalizing image of the score in my preparation)–I had expected a more driving, rhythmic sound, but got instead the subtle, nebulous textures that Franz Welser-Most seems to favor in new music; his approach on the podium was nearly as metronomic as the three metronomes in the score (but what other choice did he have, with them ticking away like that?). Ms. Neuwirth is clearly concerned with time and the perception of time, and that worked successfully in this piece. If there is a motivic structure, it was difficult to perceive on first hearing (again, another chance to listen would help), but there was sufficient interest that 20 minutes was not too long, and I will be interested to hear more of this work and others by its composer.

This was, of course, not my first encounter with Mahler’s C#-minor symphony. I was able to review my notes in my copy of the score and reread my blog posts from nine years ago on the piece, and it brought back some of my questions about the work from that period. While last night’s performance helped answer some questions, it raised others. In his pre-concert talk, Baldwin Wallace Professor Michael Strasser played exceprts from Bruno Walter’s 1947 recording of the work, which seemed unbelievably fast to me in comparison to the Bernstein recording that I have used as my reference for the last 25 years. Walter, of course, knew Mahler’ personally, so there is more authority to his reading, although he also had to take the limitations of his media into consideration in his preparations. At any rate, Welser-Most’s interpretation last night was deeply affecting, if not as free as Bernstein’s. I was able to appreciate a more brisk approach to the piece–the Adagietto does indeed come off better when it is around 7 or 8 minutes (by my timing) than a lugubrious reading that labors over each note. I was troubled by the decision to bring principal horn Nathaniel Silberschlag to the front of the stage–in the position between the concertmaster and conductor, as a concerto soloist–during the scherzo. I’m not sure what this added musically to the performance–the first horn part is extensive, of course, but it the movement never struck me as a feature for the horn. Mahler writes for the horn in a particular way, namely, as a fourth section of the orchestra. This is evident from the First Symphony on, as the eight horns in that piece (six in the Fifth Symphony) provide a counterweight to either strings, woodwinds, or heavy brass. To me, this is the exact reason Mahler favored a larger horn section. Taking the leader of that section away from the group–a good 30 to 40 feet away–makes him less able to lead in the section passages. I can only wonder if this is some kind of hazing, or a trick of the “dog and pony show” type that the orchestra engages in from time to time. Despite Mr. Silberschlag’s highly accurate and especially prominent performance, I’m not sure that the decision to feature him in this way was the right one. The orchestra played impeccably, and Michael Sachs’ opening trumpet solo struck the right balance for the entire work.

I look forward to my next trip to Severance Hall, in a mere three weeks, for music by Andrieesen, Prokofiev, and Beethoven, led by a conductor I have heard about but not yet seen, Jaap van Zweden.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Cleveland Concerts, Mahler symphonies, Personal Reflections | 1 Comment »

Returning to the Cleveland Orchestra

Saturday, December 1st, 2018

It hasn’t been so many months since I wrote about why I didn’t subscribe to the Cleveland Orchestra this year. With the dismissal of concertmaster William Preucil and principal trombonist Massimo LaRosa, I felt as though I could at least attend a concert with a clearer conscience, however. Hopefully, this is the first step to a more enlightened approach. I look forward to seeing if programming follows personnel in this case. I chose a concert that I would have been sure to pick as a subscriber: composer John Adams conducting his own work and that of Aaron Copland. As I said to my wife when I got home, every piece on the program was a banger, and there was no sense that I was waiting out part of the program to hear what I really wanted to see: an American orchestra performing American music, some of it from the 21st century.

One of my reasons for not subscribing was the customer service experience, and I was somewhat hesitant to buy a ticket given the iffy weather last week–I did not want a repeat of last winter’s having to forego Mahler’s Ninth symphony despite having the ticket in hand. So I put off buying until the day before the concert. The Friday night performance, unlike some Fridays, included the entire program, except for the pre-concert talk, which was not made clear on the website. I also had trouble using the website to purchase my ticket–I could not remember my password, and wasn’t able to reset the password once I had been emailed the code. I am very much in the database there–I actually received four copies of the email promoting this concert. A phone call to the box office solved the problem, however.

So–thinking I would hear the talk, I arrived an hour early, and once I found out there wasn’t to be one, I resigned myself to killing an hour until I ran into Mike Leone, who I know from my time at Ohio State, and who played trombone in the Lakeland Civic Orchestra for a time. We reconnected, and it was time well spent in the end.

The concert itself, then.  Buying my ticket late, I did not have my pick of seating locations, but I was able to find a seat that was very well-priced, and actually well-situated.  In particular, while I wasn’t any closer than I often have been, I feel like I could see and, more importantly, hear very well, and I will be looking for seats in this location in the future.

A side note: this is not my first time at Severance Hall this fall.  On October 30, I took my family to see the United States Marine Corps Band, another world-class ensemble. It was, of course, fantastic. As seating was first-come, first-served, we found seats in the Dress Circle, and the experience was very good.

The concert opened with John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine. Of Adams’ works, this is likely the most familiar, and with good reason. In fact, it is one of the pieces I emphasize in my music appreciation classes. The playing was exactly what the piece requires–precise, forceful, and on top of the beat in a way that I don’t always hear from the Cleveland Orchestra. Adams’ conducting is perhaps more suited to band than orchestra: mostly small beat patterns and a very literal approach to the stick. For Short Ride, it is appropriate, however, and it got what was needed from the musicians. Interestingly enough, after 30 years, Adams still conducts from the score for this piece (and all the others on the program). It gives this conductor-turned-composer-turned-conductor some hope. While I came to see Appalachian Spring and Leila Josefowicz, the curtain-raiser sticks firmly in my mind from last night’s program as the standout moment, perhaps because I knew immediately that I had returned on the right night.

Then to the music of Aaron Copland, and an incredible performance of Quiet City. This may be the Copland piece best suited to the Cleveland Orchestra, as it showcases this group’s incomparable string section and two of its strongest wind players–principal trumpet Michael Sachs and English hornist Robert Walters. The performance was impeccable, and, unsurprisingly, the strings seem to have adapted to the reality of acting concertmaster Peter Otto, who leads the section with confidence.

Appalachian Spring has long been one of my favorite pieces of music. For a time when I was young, it seemed like every group I was in performed the Variations on a Shaker Melody in either its band or orchestra version, but when I played the full 1945 suite in youth orchestra, it was a revelation. I normally study scores in advance of attending a Cleveland Orchestra concert, and I have the score to Appalachian Spring on my shelf, but it wasn’t really necessary in this case, although there are some things I am going to go back and look at when I get the chance.

One of my favorite Cleveland Orchestra concerts of the last few years was Marin Alsop’s rendition of Copland’s Third Symphony, so I knew that the orchestra was more than capable of presenting an inspiring performance of middle-period Copland (that said–wouldn’t it be great to hear Connotations or Dybbuk Severance? Just a thought…). This is a much tougher piece to lead than either of the two previous pieces, and Adams seemed somewhat less comfortable with it–I would be, too. He conducts mostly from the wrist and elbow, letting the stick do the bulk of the work, and saving the shoulder for bigger moments, which is similar to my approach, but this may limit his expression. I also saw more knee-work from him than I am comfortable with–since musicians can’t see your knees, for the most part, bending them isn’t particularly helpful, and can actually obscure what is happening with your upper body as you bob around in their peripheral vision.

The Orchestra, of course, takes all of this in stride, having played the piece many times. There was a tiny flub in the trumpet section, a rarity at Severance, and it was fascinating to see that lead the orchestra to sit up and take notice–tighten up in the way that the best musicians do in such situations. Overall, Adams’ interpretation was fairly strong, if not really ever unorthodox, and the musicians bought into it. While I have played Appalachian Spring and the Variations, I believe this is my first time hearing it from the audience, and it does not disappoint. I realize, now, how it truly is a suite of the ballet–it is very modular in its construction, shifting from one episode to another relatively quickly. As luck would have it, I am just completing the first draft of a piece, Channels, for the Blue Streak Ensemble, that is constructed more or less the same way, and I have been worried about whether it will convey a sense of unity. Copland here demonstrates that unity can arise from the sorts of rhythmic and melodic and stylistic variety that one finds in Appalachian Spring, and it is a balm to this composer with a looming deadline!

After the break came Adams’ own work again, his latest violin concerto Scheherazade.2, performed by its dedicatee Leila Josefowicz. I first saw Ms. Josefowicz perform when we were both teenagers–I in the audience and she onstage with the Columbus Symphony playing the Tchaikovsky. That vogue for very young violinists seems to have passed–and that whole generation (Josefowicz, Sarah Chang, Joshua Bell) has gone on to show that our excitement over them was not unfounded.  Josefowicz did not disappoint in the slightest, although Adams’ orchestration at times threatened to overpower her–this is suprising after reading his thoughts on his experience with his first Violin Concerto in the late 1980s in his memoir Hallelujah Junction. In his remarks from the podium, Adams admitted that his first experience with Scheherazade is Rimsky-Korsakov’s tone poem of the same name which, ironically, would have demonstrated a more careful approach to balance between solo violin and a large orchestra.

This is an interesting piece at this moment, and Adams admitted to this as well. I consider myself an ally to feminism, and it is clear that Adams does, too. Yet, is he the one who should be writing this piece? Aren’t there enough examples of men telling women’s stories? The other component of this work is its attempt to deal with male violence against women, and this is certainly a poignant moment for the Cleveland Orchestra to present such a piece, coming less than a month after the ouster of two misogynist members. In the notes, Adams states that the work is a “true collaboration” between himself and Josefowicz, and I would be curious to see how that collaboration unfolded. (Copland, of course, worked very closely with choreographer Martha Graham in creating Appalachian Spring, with Graham going so far as to suggest specific rhythmic ideas as well as the scenario–perhaps this is the reason Adams programmed the pieces together).

That said, I will be giving Scheherazade.2 more listening and score study. It is a kaleidoscope of orchestral effects and in juxtaposition with Short Ride in a Fast Machine, one sees just how far Adams’ style has progressed over the three decades since he came to prominence. One misses, at times, the organic, unified approach to a composition that his more minimalist-inflected work brought, but this is truly a different language, and Adams has long insisted that he never meant to be a minimalist. The cimbalom adds an interesting tonal element to the work as well, providing a link between the harp and the rack of tuned gongs in the percussion section. What I heard was good, but as the only work on this concert that was unfamiliar to me, I will have to return to it.  With Josefowicz having performed the piece 50 times in three years, it hopefully is finding a permanent place in the repertoire.

And so I returned to the Cleveland Orchestra, as was inevitable. It felt right, and I felt the joy I always hope to feel when I go, that I should always feel when I go. I felt both comforted and challenged, and I felt like the musicians had something important to say about the music they were making.  In all, it was time and money well-spent, and if it is professional development, I feel that I grew as a musician last night.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Composing, Personal Reflections | Comments Closed

Turning Down The Cleveland Orchestra

Monday, September 3rd, 2018

Cleveland Orchestra, we finally talked about my subscription on Saturday, and I told you the news: I am not renewing this year, but we needed to talk.

It’s not me, it’s you.

The concerts are great. I’ve loved the concerts. I’ve been attending subscription concerts since 2000, with a long break in there when I lived out of town, but for many years I couldn’t imagine living in Cleveland without being a subscriber. In fact, attending your concerts has spoiled me for any other orchestra, I daresay. My wife and I once subscribed to the nearest symphony orchestra to where we were living–a 120-mile round trip–and I was glad to go, but there were two concerts that were just bad now that I’ve heard you (and Chicago, and the London Symphony Orchestra, and Cincinnati, and Columbus, and Nashville… there are other fish in the sea, even if they aren’t you). I wish I could afford better seats, but at Severance, all the seats are good enough to give a fantastic musical experience, even if you have to climb a small mountain to get to them.

I’ve heard and seen some amazing things the last few years: Abrahamsen’s Let Me Tell You, Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin, symphonies by Mahler (although not as many as I paid for), Shostakovich, and Sibelius, and Respighi, and Richard Strauss’ Alpensinfonie.  Even when I’m a little bit disappointed, like with your Rite of Spring last year (so polite!), it isn’t because your standards aren’t high, it’s because I live in a different world where orchestra music has scrapes and scratches and I forgive them because I make music with people who can’t devote all their time to it, even though they wish they could, and work as hard at it as they can.

The problem isn’t the performance, though.  I want you to know that.

Last year, I built my own season. There wasn’t a package that wouldn’t have had me trading in everything. You know there are things I like, and things I avoid. Give me new, give me big, give me challenging. I have a list of pieces I want to hear you play, and I’ve been checking them off. Since I’ve been 40, I think of it as my bucket list. I can’t afford all of the concerts, or even half of them. Four concerts is what it comes down to, and last year, you threw me a ticket to the gala, which was, of course, well-performed, but not really music I was excited about. It was an orchestra seat, and I never sit on the first floor, but the gala convinced me that maybe I should once in a while. I digress. I come alone, which isn’t ideal sometimes, but we have two small kids who can’t come, and my wife just isn’t interested enough to justify the extra expense. I consider it to be professional development, not entertainment, and I write off all the expenses of going (study scores, recordings, mileage, parking, tickets) on our income taxes.  It’s a big deal for me to go, and I look forward to it, and it, frankly, disrupts things at our house by putting more work on my wife as she picks up the slack. But it’s worth it, to me. So worth it. I even leave early and come to the talk.  These are not the things that are making me not renew, but rather the circumstances of my attendance, and I have long been willing to deal with them, and since I moved back to Northeast Ohio, I have gone to subscription concerts every year, and subscribed for the last five years. Last year, I even used one of my precious slots to come hear Mitsuko Uchida play my favorite Mozart concerto (No. 20), something I have eschewed before because of my personal tastes, but felt like I needed to try as a professional–experience part of a collaboration that will be legendary. (It was good. It was so good. But not for me.)

So here are my problems:

In January of this year, I had a ticket to see Mahler’s Ninth Symphony on a Friday night. For once, a friend and I had made plans to go together. My friend bought a single ticket. Then the weather turned, as is wont to happen. We consulted, and decided to stay home and live to see more Cleveland Orchestra concerts rather than risk the roads. It’s after 5pm by this point. Guys, you let my friend change to Saturday night, but told me, a long-time subscriber, that I would have to eat the ticket that I had paid for back in August. Mahler’s Ninth is on my bucket list, and now it will have to wait. It would have been great–I know it was, because my friend told me how great it turned out to be on Saturday. Seriously?

Now that seems a little bit petty, so let’s talk about programming choices. Let’s talk about last season, the Centennial season. Sometimes, I feel like you go into “dog and pony” mode. All of Respighi’s Roman tryptych on one concert, for example (brilliantly played, of course). The last couple of weeks of this season–your big centennial moment–had Tristan and Turangalila and a week of all nine Beethoven symphonies. Don’t get me wrong: I love Beethoven. I get that Beethoven is the reason that any orchestra exists in its present form, and that any orchestra needs to play a lot of Beethoven. But as your 100th birthday present to the world? As a way to mark what you have accomplished and look to the future? If I want to hear all nine Beethoven symphonies, I can do that in so many ways, from streaming, to popping in the complete set by Toscanini I bought years ago (or picking up the versions you recorded with Szell), or, honestly, by attending concerts at Severance and Blossom. How many of those were you going to play anyway? Three, four, five? Seems likely.  I’ve heard your Beethoven, and it was transcendant (the Ninth at Blossom a few years ago). I actually went to a Beethoven Ninth last year because a friend of mine was singing with the Cleveland Philharmonic, and as a conductor of a community orchestra, I just wanted to see what would happen. Yes, I schlepped all the way to Westlake to hear a pretty darn good rendition in a decent space, and I took my parents, and we didn’t have to pay to park, and my chair was more comfortable. I mean, it still wasn’t you, but it wasn’t a terrible experience at all.

My point is, you shot your centennial wad on celebrating the past, playing music that every community orchestra in the country goes after, that, let’s face it, your musicians have memorized at this point. This is the 1992 US Men’s Olympic Basketball team or the 1927 Yankees playing high school ball. This is Bobby Fischer playing chess on his smartphone. Yes, program Beethoven. But as your big thing? As your notch in the rock? Seriously? If nothing else, the disappointment when I opened up that brochure a year ago was almost enough, but there were some bucket list things in there, too for me: Messiaen, the Mahler (see above), Rite of Spring (see above), Jonathan Biss playing Sciarino (with Bruckner), and some I couldn’t go to because there wasn’t time or money. So I bought the tickets.

But do you know? I was a college freshman in 1994 when the Cincinnati Symphony turned 100. Do you know what they did? The commissioned a new piece for every subscription weekend. 25 or 30 pieces by living American composers. (They called them fanfares, in homage to the group of commissions they made 50 years earlier during the Second World War. One of those pieces? You might have heard of it: Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.) So anyway, as a freshman with a card that got me $7 tickets (seven dollars!!!–the sticker shock when I found out what full price at the symphony meant!) and a bunch of fellow music majors to split cabs with, I got an education on the state of composition in the US. Local composers. National composers. Even one who had been commissioned 50 years earlier! (Short on women and people of color, but more on that later). Cincinnati acknowledged their past in some big ways, but they also pointed toward the future, in essence telling us that they would be around for another century. The audience in Cincinnati was much more conservative and much more blue-haired than the audience at Severance. Music Hall was not nearly the venue that Severance is (although I haven’t been back since the renovation was done). Did you really let Porkopolis outdo you on this?

The Los Angeles Philharmonic turns 100 this year. And they have commissioned fifty new pieces, with an appropriate range of composers in terms of both style and background. I couldn’t believe the list–I felt like I was the only composer who didn’t get a commission on this project. Old, young, white, not-white, male, female. Every audience member and every potential audience member can connect with one of these people. I mean, if LA can pull this off in a town with a reputation for chintz and superficiality, surely Cleveland could have done such a thing, and with more grace and good-old Midwestern-meets-Mitteleuropan rigor, right?

And then this year. Where are the local composers? Where are the composers of color? Where are the composers who aren’t dead white men? I haven’t made a big deal out of it, but the orchestra I conduct, which puts on three concerts a year, has a piece by a female composer on every concert this year. That means we are programming 300% as much music by women as you have on your Severance series. A community orchestra. And honestly, not the best one around, and certainly not the one led by the best conductor around. But you know what, I just did it. I don’t have to explain why we’re doing it (or at least I shouldn’t, but here goes: lots of good music out there by women that we haven’t played yet; half our audience is female; more than half our orchestra is female; there are things a female artist has to say that need to be said; they are just good pieces; there are centuries of oppression and suppression to make up for… need I go on?). I’m still working on more music by people who aren’t white–I’m hoping to secure funding to be able to afford William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony this year. When are you doing Black composers other than on Martin Luther King Day? Your centennial season was also the 50th anniversary of the Hough Rebellion–your next door neighbors. Couldn’t you even acknowledge that with one piece on one subscription concert? It actually would have fit in well with your Prometheus theme and Beethoven the revolutionary! And there are great composers who have and do call Northeast Ohio their home. Don’t you think that the audience would connect with their work? Ernst Bloch ran the Cleveland Institute of Music. William Grant Still attended Oberlin. Donald Erb. Keith Fitch. Jeffrey Mumford. Margaret Brouwer (we played her last spring, and then she sent the parts we used to the Columbus Symphony, who apparently do know how to look around themselves for inspiration). James Wilding. Clint Needham (Albany and Akron know how awesome he is). Larry Baker. Nick Underhill. Frank Wiley.  And none of these people are just wannabes like myself, and they all ache to have their music performed locally. They have awards and major performances and have been recognized. They are the kind of composers who appear on Cleveland Orchestra programs but don’t register outside the region, and you can change that by championing them. The Cleveland Orchestra does not have to be an island of Europe in the middle of America.

I’ve also spent this year following the unfolding scandals throughout the classical music world as part of the #MeToo movement. As it happens, I also took the time to read The Cleveland Orchestra Story by Donald Rosenberg. I’ve been around the music world long enough to know about the open secrets–my alma mater in Cincinnati finally dealt with one of those this year, and let me tell you that as an undergrad trombone major, I had heard the rumors about that particular predator and his students. So Levine, yes. That was a long time ago, but talking to people who were around then, it was pretty clear what he was up to, and you all enabled it. You all gave him his start and let down generations of young musicians–again, the future of our art form. It could have been nipped in the bud, but in the name of art and I-don’t-know-what-else, you let it go. It was before my time, though, so I can’t really understand the decisions, and most of the people who let it go on are long gone. But Preucil. A great player, and a great caretaker of the string section, of course, but you’ve been paying him nearly a million dollars a year to abuse his position and the power it gives him over young musicians. And it’s been more than a month now, and you’ve still only suspended him with pay. I know there’s a union agreement, and I know there’s due process, but come on. Have you seen the Google search results for “Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster?” This doesn’t look good, and people have certainly been fired for less, and you know what? He will be fine, because you have been paying him nearly a million dollars a year.

So, I’m not subscribing. That’s why.

I might come to a concert or two (John Adams and Jennifer Higdon are both high on my list; I actually wish I would have gone to Tristan last year, because how many opportunities do you get, honestly, but it wasn’t a convenient week for me). I will definitely check out some of the other great classical music going on in Cleveland that I have been missing because I’ve prioritized your concerts: Apollo’s Fire, No Exit, Quire Cleveland, Akron Symphony, Cleveland Chamber Symphony. Maybe I’ll take a trip to Pittsburgh and see what I’ve heard on the radio for many years with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Possibly some things at CIM, where the orchestra did a by-no-means-flawless, but exciting Ring without words last spring under Brett Mitchell, a Cleveland Orchestra alum who I really admire.

There are, of course, other fish in the sea.

I’ll be back. I can’t stay away, because when you have one of the world’s great orchestras playing 20 minutes from your house, what else can you do?  (I was stupid and never went to a Cavs game while LeBron was here, but basketball isn’t my career.) So keep sending the brochures and flyers, and I’ll keep telling my students to head on down (but I’ll tell them why I’m not), and we’ll see each other when we see each other. But just know–it’s not me, it’s you.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Personal Reflections | Comments Closed

February Thoughts

Wednesday, February 11th, 2015

The month of February and I have never gotten along well.

Some thoughts:

It really is just bad luck that every time I’ve turned on public radio in the last few days there has been a story about death.  Not just reporting the facts of one or more deaths, but actually about death.

There will not be this little daylight again until sometime in October.

I am now immune to the particular viruses that have given me stomach flu and laryngitis this month.  Their offspring may be mutated bastards, but I won’t be troubled by the originals.

Only a few more weeks of scraping before driving.  Which digs into the composition time I’ve tried to block out for myself in the mornings.

I can’t really be expected to try to write music under these circumstances anyway.  As Jennifer Jolley puts it, “why compose when you can blog?”

I’m halfway through this year’s installment of Best American Short Stories, and if they seem evenly split between love and death, that’s normal.  Literature is about love and death.

February is the shortest month, and there’s a good reason for that.

There’s no pleasing singers, especially in February.

The urge to go to bed at a reasonable time and not get up until March is completely acceptable.

I am a better person for refusing to go to the Wendy’s that smells like a sewer inside.  I’m not so sure about driving extra to get to the Wendy’s with the fancy Coke machine.

If I lose my voice and can’t talk in class, that might actually be an improvement.

At least I get to go to a Cleveland Orchestra concert this week.  Only some of the music they’re going to play is about the pointlessness and futility of trying to master one’s own destiny.  The rest is by a composer who couldn’t think of anything else to say and took the last thirty years of his life off.

Seventeen more days until March.

The idea of “nostalgia” doesn’t mix well with February.  It becomes too much -algia.

And what’s the point of being nostalgic anyway?  February was awful  in almost any year I can think of.

It may be February, bit it isn’t Simon Kenton Winter Camp in 1989-90 over New Years.  That was some horrific awfulness and a misguided idea if I ever heard one.  I still can’t believe my parents paid for me to do that, and that I thought it would be fun.

It also isn’t the winter of 1999-2000.  That was some Grade A awfulness, although I was at least busy that February.

And–OMEA Convention was in Cleveland this year, and I didn’t go, which is some February awfulness avoided.

Well, this is dismal, and it’s time for class.  Enough griping about my first-world problems.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Personal Reflections | Comments Closed

Cleveland Orchestra plays Barber, Schumann, Copland

Sunday, December 1st, 2013

Always a joy to head down to Severance Hall to hear the local band, the Cleveland Orchestra, and that’s where Dan Perttu and I were last night.  Marin Alsop conducted Barber’s Second Essay, Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and Copland’s Third Symphony.  A stellar performance in many respects.

Some thoughts.  I want to try out some of Maestra Alsop’s moves–in both of the 20th-century pieces, her baton arm was frequently quite low–almost at waist level–as it went away from her body.  Not so much in the Schumann, which of course has considerably more lightness both in tone and in what is actually required of the orchestra.  The “low beat” is something I associate with choral conducting, but I always liked the way it can encourage a group to give a full-bodied, massive tone–if it can be seen over the podium!

The Barber may be something that is in the realm of possibility for the Lakeland Civic Orchestra, and I need to look into it.  I wasn’t very familiar with it before I decided to attend this concert and did some preparatory listening.  A somewhat hesitant start from the orchestra, but a thrilling conclusion.

The Schumann piano concerto has been one of my favorites for many years, which means that I usually want to hear it just-so.  Pianist David Fray was competent, but not astonishing, at least not from where I sat.  It seemed, particularly in the outer movements, that he had somewhere else that he needed to be just then.  In particular, the first movement cadenza felt rushed–for a part of the piece that certainly invites a pianist to take some time and space, no matter what tempo one chooses for the main body of the movement.

The Copland was splendidly done.  Alsop gave a wonderfully cogent explanation of the motivic structure of the piece before playing it that, I think, would help almost any audience hear what Copland does with the “Common Man” material.  The full performance was revelatory–I had only heard the piece on CD before, and to me one the advantages of watching a live performance is the visual reinforcement of a composer’s orchestrational technique.  There are doublings, of course, that only really great players can make work–horn and flute, for example, but of course the Clevelanders play them with ease.  My only quibble was a lack of energy and drive in the second movement, but it is, after all, an enormous piece, and to expend so much in the scherzo would endanger the effectiveness of the finale.

Also picked up trombonist Massimo La Rosa’s new CD in the gift shop, and I’m about halfway through listening to it as I type this entry.  An interesting balance of standard repertoire and new transcriptions, including a daring trombone version of the Bach G-major cello suite.  Love his tone and musicality (the solo in the first movement of the Copland last night was exquisite)!

One of the exciting things about conducting the Lakeland Civic Orchestra is going to a concert like this and seeing four or five of the orchestra members in attendance–what a change from previous groups!

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Closed

Mahler 7, Cleveland, Alan Gilbert

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

Some thoughts about the music I heard at Severance tonight with Dan and Melinda Perttu. At the pre-concert talk Roger Klein quoted critics who found Mahler’s music, particularly the Seventh Symphony, banal. As I listened this evening, I realized that really isn’t other music like Mahler’s by composers of his own time. It is banal, and that is what makes it significant.  Mahler may have been writing the world within his symphonies, but his basic musical language is exactly that of the commonplace, the street, the Gypsy camp, the shtetl, the nursery, the cathedral, the bedroom, the privy. His point is that the meaning of life is in the living, in the filthy, disgusting, degrading living, and that by living for our best even among the worst, we achieve the transcendence that Mahler saw in the human condition.  Mahler acknowledges that we live in a world where children die young and are warped by abuse (or even well-meaning parenting), wives cheat on their husbands (and vice versa), governments persecute minorities, musicians care for their beer more than the music they are rehearsing, and wars, famine, pestilence and the rest are all realities.  By taking the songs of childhood, worship, the poor, the illiterate into his music, he points out that the solution is to live life all the same, that transcendence can come from the common, the ordinary, the plain, and, yes, from the banal.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Mahler symphonies | Comments Closed