Ravel

The Legend of the Concert Roundup

No, seriously… what’s going on?

• The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is making it short but very sweet this week: the Ravel Piano Concerto for Left Hand and Shostakovich‘s seventh symphony (that’s “Leningrad” to you, bub). Oh, hey, guess who’s dropping in to play the Ravel? Oh, some guy named Leon Fleisher. No biggie. May 3 & 6 at the Meyerhoff. [ See it! ]
• Or if you prefer, the BSO offers its Off the Cuff version of the Shostakovich; in addition to playing the symphony, Marin Alsop will explain its musical form and cultural context. May 4 at Strathmore; May 5 at the Meyerhoff. [ See it! ]
• I said hey-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah! The National Symphony Orchestra‘s NSO Pops take on a Marvin Gaye program, because why the hell not? With John Legend, no less. Now that’s some competitive booking. May 3 & 4. [ See it! ]
• The NSO also offers a children’s concert this week, focusing on brass instruments with Brass of Peace. Is that a pun? None of the ones I’m coming up with are appropriate for children. May 5. [ See it! ]
• The University of Maryland is performing Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, but for the life of me I can’t find the info. UMD, if you’re out there, ping me the details and I’ll update this post.
• This week at Strathmore, we’ve got jazz singers John Pizzarelli and Kurt Elling, an all-Debussy piano program, country-rock singer Owen Danoff, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. [ See the calendar! ]

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?

The pits

As I mentioned yesterday, I spent my Saturday in New York City with some fellow ballerinas. We did the requisite NYC wandering, but our main objective was to see the New York City Ballet perform a series of short works, including The Steadfast Tin Soldier (which I didn’t like because NO ONE MELTED), Le Tombeau de Couperin (which I loved, at least in part because RAVEL!), a Tchaikovsky pas de deux (more on that Friday, kinda), and The Concert (hilarious at the beginning, WTF at the end).

But this is not a post about ballet. This is a post about the pit.

The New York City Ballet performs with a pit orchestra, an increasingly rare luxury in these hard economic times. I’ve never played in a pit, myself, but I can only imagine it’s a very different experience from playing in a regular concert — and not just because no one can see you. Even if your work has been recorded to CD, when someone plays that CD it’s all about you and your music. In the pit, you become secondary, do you not? Important, yes, but not the focus. The conductor doesn’t even get to fully control the nuances of the piece, constantly adjusting to suit the dancers/actors/what have you.

I thought of this particularly because of the Tchaikovsky, the lost pas de deux from Swan Lake. It featured a violin solo, and I wondered — what’s it like soloing in the pit? Of course you still don’t want to make a mistake, but the eyes aren’t on you; hell, most of the audience can’t even see you. Are you still nervous? Do you play it your way, or are you more inclined to play traditionally, to keep things consistent for the dancer? Does it even matter if you snag a solo or not?

And conductors, how do you feel answering to dancers? Does it add an extra layer of difficulty, dividing your attention between the musicians and the performers on stage? Have you ever had a dancer ask for a truly ridiculous adjustment? Have the music and the dancing ever separated, and if so, how did you get it back? Did you get it back?

In short, does playing in the pit take the pressure off, or is it the pit of despair?*

* Don’t even think about trying to escape.

Also Sprach Concert Roundup

The people be sprachin’ all over the place.

• Ooh! Ooh! This week at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra it’s Tchaikovsky‘s first piano concerto! Haters gonna hate (HI MOM!), but this piece nestled into my heart like a worm into an eight-year-old apple the moment it opened Tchaikovsky Discovers America. And! Ravel‘s Bolero (won’t he be thrilled?) and Strauss‘s Also Sprach Zarathustra. He certainly did. January 19 & 22 at the Meyerhoff. [ See it! ]
• Did I say Also Sprach Zarathustra? I meant also sprach conductor Marin Alsop, who has much to say on the subject of what is arguably Strauss‘s most famous piece. The BSO presents another concert in the popular Off the Cuff series, which intersperses the music with fun facts from Alsop herself. January 20 at Strathmore and January 21 at the Meyerhoff. [ See it! ]
• Meanwhile, over in National Symphony Orchestraland (which is kind of like Never Neverland only Metro-accessible), Jim Gaffigan conducts. No, wait, that’s not right — James Gaffigan conducts, and as far as I’m aware he’s not a stand-up comic on the side (although that would be AWESOME). Who is he conducting? Why, Ingrid Fliter on the piano, in such works as Mozart‘s Divertimento in D major, Schumann‘s Piano Concerto in a minor, a piece by Glanert I can’t spell, and — wait for it — Mozart‘s symphony no. 41, the “Jupiter” symphony! Holy guacamole, guys, even I like the “Jupiter”! January 19 – 21. [ See it! ]

Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, only with instruments

I mean, they all just pop up out of nowhere and start advancing. Except, of course, the guy who was percussing on the railing; he was kind of stuck where he was, I assume.

Concert Roundup: The Reckoning

Hey, guess which blog has its second anniversary tomorrow? No, no, you have to guess.

While you’re thinking, here are this week’s concerts:

• The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is trying to fake me out by titling this week’s offering “Rachmaninoff’s Third,” but I’m way too sharp for that. Rather than dismiss it at face value, I ripped off the mask and said “AHA! It’s Rimsky-Korsakov‘s Capriccio Espagnol under there!” And, admittedly, Rachmaninoff‘s third symphony. And the first Liszt piano concerto. But everyone knows I have a soft enough spot for Capriccio Espagnol to carry me through. Vasily Petrenko conducts, Barry Douglas pianates, and you can find it October 28 and 30 at the Meyerhoff, October 29 at Strathmore. See it!
• The National Symphony Orchestra counters with a different handful of the Mighty Handful and offers up Mussourgsky‘s Pictures at an Exhibition. Talk about carrying you through. If you’re not already convinced, the Exhibition is augmented with a Grieg piano concerto and a Berlioz overture. Solid. Lorin Maazel conducts, Simon Trpčeski pianates, and you can find it October 27-29 at the Kennedy Center concert hall. See it!
• Update to add: @TerpsMusic tells me that there’s a concert at The University of Maryland on October 28 featuring Jonathan Richards, winner of the 2010 UMSO Concerto Competition. He’ll play Shostakovich‘s first violin concerto; the program also includes some Tchaikovsky, Ravel, and Takemitsu. See it!

Is it good because it’s famous?

It quite famously annoyed the hell out of Ravel that his most famous work was Bolero. “It has no form, properly speaking,” he said, “no development, no or almost no modulation.” And also: “It constitutes an experiment in a very special and limited direction, and should not be suspected of aiming at achieving anything different from, or anything more than, it actually does achieve.” (Thanks Wikipedia!)

And yet the most well known work he ever wrote is Bolero. People who aren’t into classical music may not know the piece by name, but they’re sure to know it when they hear it. Which makes me wonder: is a composer’s most popular work necessarily his best work?

Ravel certainly didn’t seem to think so. In Fantasia, it is claimed that Tchaikovsky really detested the score to The Nutcracker, but what classical music is more universally beloved? But then Wagner seems to have had no problem with “Ride of the Valkyries,” even going so far as eventually permitting it to be performed outside of its opera. No one will contest that The Firebird is fantastic music, but coming so early in Stravinsky’s career, can it really be called his best?

Is it a question of the popular opinion being a crappy one? Ouch. Or maybe some otherwise good music becomes so ubiquitous that it gets played out? Or is a composer’s most famous work automatically best by virtue of the fact that it’s the most famous? Thoughts?

Btw, don’t forget about the BSO preview concerts and gala this weekend!

After the apocalypse, only vampires will like Rachmaninoff

I just read Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, which was, as is almost always the case when you’re not talking about Neil Gaiman, way better than the movie. Without giving anything away, the bit with the dog made me cry. If you’re not familiar with the plot, the basic premise is that the entire human population has been taken down by some sort of plague that has more or less turned them into vampires; one man, Robert Neville, remains fully human.

It’s essentially well-written survival horror, which may or may not be your thing, but what I find interesting is that throughout Neville’s post-apocalyptic, fear-driven hermit existence, he plays classical music to help — to fill the silence, to drown out the vampires calling for his blood, a balm for his psychological wounds. He plays Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, Mozart’s “Jupiter” symphony, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe.

And then one day he comes across another person, a woman named Ruth. Maybe she’s infected too, but she’s alive, so he takes her in and they talk and listen to Schubert’s fourth symphony.

The music ended. She got up and he watched her while she looked through his records…. “May I play this?” she asked, holding up an album.

He didn’t even look at it. “If you like,” he said.

She sat down as Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto began. Her taste isn’t remarkably advanced, he thought, looking at her without expression.

I have nothing to add to this except: bahahahaha.

What music would you take with you in the vampire apocalypse?

Give money, get music

Oh, this is interesting. Got an email from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra:

Make a gift of $75 or more to get access for two people to the Donor Appreciation Concert on June 18th.  Donors of $250 or more receive four complimentary seats.

Join us at this year’s Donor Appreciation Concert as the BSO shares the stage with members of the BSO Academy Orchestra. As one of our valued Members, you will have the exclusive opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at one of the BSO’s groundbreaking initiatives.  Be one of the few who will have the chance to experience Maestra Marin Alsop leading the Academy’s culminating concert featuring symphonic favorites by Bernstein, Ravel, Mahler, Rimsky-Korsakov and Hindemith. For more information on the concert, click here.

Become a Beethoven level Member ($150) and enhance your concert-going experience with two complimentary drink vouchers.

Ticket sales cover only 40% of our annual operating costs.  Your gift will help us balance our budget and reach our remaining Annual Fund goal of $150,000 by August 31st!

To discover more ways your support will enhance lives in local communities, please visit our “Case for Music.”

Make a gift to the BSO today!

I checked out the concert, and they’re offering some Ravel, some Hindemith, a Mahler symphony, AND: Berstein’s Overture to Candide AND: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio espagnol! And if  you give them $150 they’ll also give you alcohol? What a deal! Man, I wish I had that kind of money to drop. Does anyone wanna go splitsies with me?

The spirit of Norvay has alvays been and vill alvays be adventure!

Because you can’t talk about Grieg without talking about Norway, and you can’t talk about Norway without talking about the Maelstrom. Well, maybe you can, but I definitely can’t.

As you might have inferred, this week’s BSO concert is “Grieg’s Piano Concerto.” I quite like Grieg, myself, but I’m not familiar with his piano efforts. Which evidently makes me weird, because Wikipedia claims it’s one of the most popular piano concertos out there. It says lots of other stuff too, the most important being that this piece KILLED SIMON BARERE. Yes. It’s a KILLER PIANO CONCERTO. You better watch it, Orion Weiss.

Everyone knows that entertainment is better when someone might die. But if the possibility of death by Grieg isn’t enough for you, the concert also offers Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales and a concerto for orchestra by Lutoslawski (no word on whether this concerto is also dangerous). See it on Thursday, March 24 (Wine Night!) or Friday, March 25 at 8 pm at the Meyerhoff, or Saturday, March 26 at 8 pm at Strathmore. I hope you live to tell the tale.

P.S. This is just a reminder that you have until this Friday to vote in the Composer Cagematch!