Beethoven

We Meet Again, Concert Roundup

Welcome back, cats and kittens! Let’s round up some concerts.

• FREUDE! The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has excellent taste. I know this because this week they’re performing Beethoven‘s ninth symphony. Aha! You’re paying attention now, aren’t you? Also in the offing: Bruckner‘s Te Deum. May 24 & 25 at the Meyerhoff; May 26 at Strathmore. [ See it! ]
• No National Symphony Orchestra concert this week.
• Don’t forget about the Strathmore calendar – there’s always something going on; this week there’s a soprano performing Italian arias! [ See the calendar! ]
• Speaking of Strathmore, they’re currently scheduling auditions for the very first iteration of their new children’s chorus. Ages 8 through 16 are eligible, and auditions will be help on June 23, July 15, and August 18. Your kid could be a charter member! To make an appointment, email cguerra@strathmorecc.org.

See the music, hear the dance

“See the music, hear the dance,” says Balanchine. This is important.

I took a choreography course as an elective in grad school. It was not a wholly successful venture, as we performed our own works and I am not always entirely at home with being Under Scrutiny, but I do think I improved my skills.

We always talked through our pieces, about what was working and what wasn’t, and the professor gave some insight into her own struggles. One such issue was her sometimes frustration with finding a piece of music she desperately wanted to choreograph but being unable to see her way to any steps. A student had set her final dance to such a score – a piano piece by Debussy – and the professor expressed her admiration at the student’s ability to pick up on layers on the music to fuel her steps. “Those are layers I never would have noticed as right to highlight.”

The best dances are those that do not exist outside their music. The dull ones – you know the ones I mean, I’m sure – have choreography that may impress with tricks and spins but have little or no relation to the music being played in the background. It’s just a beat, or a collection of lyrics meant to do all the work of explaining the purpose of the dance so that the dancer and choreographer don’t have to bother with it (there are rare exceptions to this).

On the flip side, to go back to Balanchine, he didn’t want to choreograph to Beethoven because he felt Beethoven’s music needed no further augmentation. Similarly, there are dances that are created without music at all.

If they want to play, music and dance must do more than play nice with each other. They must complement each other, and find the new layers.

Thoughts?

For more on this, you might be interested in my interview with Shannon Schwait of CityDance.

A Concert Roundup is a Joy Forever

That’s all… something something, and all you need to know. Or whatever. Mary Poppins only says the first bit so I don’t remember.

• This week at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Arabella Steinbacher proves she has excellent taste, assuming she made the call to perform the Beethoven Violin Concerto. If that isn’t enough for you (weirdo), perhaps you’ll be swayed by Weber‘s Euryanthe overture and Schumann’s “Rhenish” symphony (that’s number 3). April 26 at Strathmore; April 27 & 28 at the Meyerhoff. [ See it! ]
• Why we’re on the subject of the BSO, the annual Decorator’s Show House opens April 29. Wander through a fully decorated home and pick out what you want like some kinda high-class Ikea, only instead of sending your money to the Swedes a portion of the proceeds will benefit the BSO. [ See it! ]
• No National Symphony Orchestra concert for a couple weeks as far as I can tell.
• This week at Strathmore, we’ve got Turkish music, gypsy jazz, Tin Pan Alley jazz songs, Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra with Yuri Bashmet and Mischa Maisky, Sarah Chang playing everyone’s favorite Mendelssohn violin concert (personal note to concert violinists: CEASE AND DESIST), and more. [ See the calendar! ]

“Sorry, just pointing”; subtitled “AAAAAAAH!”

Beethoven is very layered and complex.

It’s Easter Monday, Charlie Brown!

I don’t know why this is, but every time I think about the music Snoopy and his bunny friends dance to in the Easter Beagle special, I am convinced it’s from the first movement of Beethoven’s seventh symphony. And then I actually listen to it and I know I’m wrong, I know it, but for some reason it sounds like it ought to be in there anyway. And so because it is Easter Monday but you probably have to work like me, and because I shoehorn Beethoven into places he isn’t, and because if you don’t smile at the sight of Snoopy dancing with bunnies you officially have no soul — EASTER BEAGLE!

Concert Roundup: Signature Edition

Actually, there’s nothing particularly signature about this concert roundup. I was just having trouble thinking up a title and it says “Signature Edition” on my copy of Dragon Age 2 (because I pre-ordered it and got the Black Emporium for free, that’s why).

• Aha! The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is trying to placate me. Why else would they title their concert “Beethoven and Dvorak“? Ludwig’s fourth piano concerto features, plus Antonin’s Carnival Overture (fun!), Kodaly‘s Dances of Galanta (Hungary represent!) and Janacek (I’ll give you three guesses as to which piece and the first two don’t count because it’s Taras Bulba, duh). March 16 & 18 at the Meyerhoff and March 17 at Strathmore. [ See it! ]
• Oh, hey! The National Symphony Orchestra wants to please me, too. They’re performing a concert opera version of Beethoven’s Fidelio! Don’t worry, there’ll be subtitles; you can read while you’re also trying to see things, right? March 15 – 17. [ See it! ]
• During matinees, however, the NSO is All Strauss, all the time. Ya got your overtures, ya got your waltzes, ya got your polkas; you couldn’t pay me to go.* But my dad just LOVES that beautiful blue Danube, so maybe you do too. March 16. [ See it! ]
• A smattering of upcoming Strathmore performances: a rock violinist, a NOT rock violinist, DC a capella groups, a classical pianist. [ See the schedule! ]

* This is a lie. Make me an offer.

Telling criminals to give it a rest

But wait — doesn’t a bit of the old Ludwig Van cause violence?

see more So Much Pun

The Best

Two weeks ago I made a list of composers I considered to be the greatest, in terms of talent, innovation, and output. I tried to make this as objective as possible while still noting that my own preferences and the limits of my knowledge base must unavoidably come into play.

This week? IT’S SUBJECTIVE TIME. Which, indeed, is kind of like Miller Time — alcohol free, yes, but with just as much opportunity to shout your opinions while gesticulating wildly and possibly falling out of your chair.

All of this is just to say that here I would like to present my list not of the greatest composers of all time but the ones I like BEST. Basically the idea here is a collection of the composers that, when the radio deejay says, “next is a piece by ________”, make me say “YAY!!!” Here goes:

1. BEETHOVEN (duh)
2. Bach
3. Khachaturian (and I stand by my decision)
4. Stravinsky
5. Schubert
6. Holst
7. Prokofiev
8. Shostakovich
9. Ravel
10. Tchaikovsky

There is of course a fair amount of overlap, but I bet some of them surprise you. Before you pull out your extra-sharp pitchfork, rest assured — I’m not suggesting Khachaturian ranks above Stravinsky in… well, in ANY category, really. Stravinsky is definitely the better composer. But Khachaturian makes me super happy! So high up the list he stays. Ya get me?

The nice thing about this list is, it’s even more changeable than a best-of list, undulating and evolving with your changing moods and interests; I expect Handel could sneak on to mine any moment now.

Now about you — who are you feeling right now?

A proper warmup is key

From The New York Times:

In a strip from 1953 Schroeder embarks on an intensive workout. He does push-ups, jumps rope, lifts weights, touches his toes, does sit-ups (“Puff, Puff”), boxes, runs (“Pant, Pant”) and finally eats (“Chomp! Chomp!”). In the last two panels he walks to his piano with determination and begins playing furiously, sweat springing from his brow.

The eighth notes above Schroeder’s head are from the opening bars of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata (Op. 106), a piece so long, artistically complex and technically difficult that it is referred to as the “Giant” Sonata. When Beethoven delivered it to the publisher in 1819, he is believed to have said, “Now you will have a sonata that will keep the pianists busy when it is played 50 years from now.”

Surely Schroeder himself has kept the pianists — and the pianists’ audiences — busy with his torch for Beethoven. Read the full article here.

The Greatest

Note: By the end of this post I will ask you to create your own list of the top ten composers. I’m ruining the ending for you because I think it might be neat if you do it now, before you’re corrupted by my list or the NYT list or your grocery list or what have you. Just a thought. Thank you; good morning!

Hey, remember how I said the lynchpin of the Composer Cagematch! is not who you feel is the better composer but rather who you love more? Well, put a pin in it. We’re playing a new game now.

A couple weeks ago while at my grandmother’s house my family got into a discussion about who the greatest composers of all time were — greatest, not our favorites. (Yeah, my family has random chats about classical composers — just wait until I tell you about the great Dvorak’s Origins Argument of Thanksgiving 2011. That one still resurfaces from time to time.) My mom pulled up a list from The New York Times music critic to get his top 10. Take a gander here.

His list began with the traditional top three but then had me ducking a few curveballs — Brahms? Really? Then he said in his article he would expect such skepticism — and it got me thinking as to what MY top ten would be. Naturally I don’t mean to say I’m a completely impartial judge (I’d say the immediately preceding sentence already knocked me out of contention for that title), but in making such a list I think one would have to look at quality over blind adoration. You’ll see what I mean.*

So… for now, here’s my top ten. I betcha my list could change as early as tomorrow, but in this moment, here are what I call The Greatest:

1. Bach
2. Beethoven
3. Mozart
4. Stravinsky
5. Schubert
6. Bartok
7. Shostakovich
8. Handel
9. Haydn
10. Prokofiev

What I find most interesting about this exercise is less about who made it but who didn’t — or rather, which sorts of composers didn’t. I didn’t name a single composer outside the Austro-Hungarian or Soviet area; nary an opera composer to be found. This is the hole in my classical understanding; this teaches me where I need to go next to expand my repertoire — and maybe revise my list once I have.

Well? How do you feel about my list? I expect some fightin’ words as opinions must always create. And what about you? For bonus points, how has your list evolved? If I can remember, I want to make this list up again next year and see if it’s changed. Someone remind me in 11.5 months, okay?

* Do you SEE that? Do you SEE how I put Mozart at number 3, even though he makes me want to sic a fictionalized Salieri on him? He’s there because he was a genius, and even if I don’t dig most of his works, I can recognize that. Incidentally, this is also how I feel about Faulkner.