When to play what and reality.

I tend to listen to my local FM classical music station at night, either preparing for bed, or, as is often the case, while snuggling in bed prior to sleep. The ear-plugs are in so not to bother my wife, a classical music lover but a sleeper first. Many nights I've listened to KVOD out of Denver for hours after the lights have gone out. Sometimes hours and hours.

The reason for setting the scene is that I've come to wonder why this station, and probably others, chooses to broadcast pieces when they do. Last night at around 10:30 they broadcast Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #1. I wasn't exactly snoozing, but it jolted me more awake. The brass seemed too loud and too throbbing for this time of night. Later they played Mozart's "Coronation" piano concerto, which, too, seemed out of place for the late hour. Maybe it's me, but at that time of night I expect long, soothing romantic symphonies ala Mahler, Bruckner, etc. Of course these composers are too long for the radio these days, but why not hope? Anyway, I got to thinking what is an appropriate time for different types of classical music? Baroque all the time? Contemporary only late on Saturday nights the way KVOD does it? Renaissance early in the morning? Classical only at supper time? Should it correspond to the orchestration? The average volume? It's length? Composer? Period? I don't have an answer, but for some reason I want to hear intellectual depth and challenge late at night. On KVOD I don't seem to get it. When I lived in Connecticut, I faithfully listened to WQXR. The late evening was for the late romantics -- not always, but most frequently. Denver was and is a cow town. We get whatever the programming director wants to foist on us, unfortunately. Artistic consistency and planning aren't important.

One other point of interest. I went to a chamber concert performed by musicians from the Colorado Music Festival on the afternoon of April 20th, 2008. My wife and I hosted 2 of the performers, both friends who had visited with us over the past 5 or 6 summers. After the concert, while driving home, I had the car radio tuned to KVOD and lo and behold, the rarest of pieces! They were broadcasting a performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony. While listening I could tell it was a live recording. It had somewhat of a hollow sound, with an occasional audience cough, etc. The Colorado Music Festival had ended its season a few years ago with it, so I suspected it was the CMF orchestra under Michael Christie. It went on, so when I got home I immediately put it on my home radio and continued listening. I was surprised to find out it was not CMF but the Boulder Philharmonic, performed the same year, under the baton of Michael Butterman. Okay, so far, so good. What surprised me next was a week later when I checked my web site (http://classicalfmradio.org) and looked for the frequency count of symphonies I discovered that it had not been counted. Was my programming that bad? How could I have missed it? I investigated and discovered that the KVOD listing for Sunday, April 20th, did not include anything by Beethoven during that time slot. Mozart, Resphigi, Vivaldi, Schubert, Hayden, etc, but not Beethoven. I hadn't tuned to another station; I hadn't mistaken the piece since both my wife and our Japanese guest were with me and agreed. So I can only conclude that the daily listings from the KVOD only partially reflect reality. Should I be surprised? I guess not.

Janacek's Intimate Vixen

Last evening I saw a performance of Leos Janacek's "The Cunning Little Vixen" at the University of Colorado. It was surprisingly good with a large cast and an interesting staging. In preparation for the performance, I'd been listening to it in it's original Czech -- but I didn't understand a word sung. The CU Music school used super-titles and had it sung in English. That was good choice. Clearly it's best to understand what an opera is all about.

This is the second performance of a Janacek piece in a week for me. Last Friday night I heard the Tasman Quartet play his "Intimate Letters", the second string quartet. The Tasman Quartet from New Zealand are the ensemble-in-residence at the University of Colorado School of Music. They will be studying for 2 years with the famous Takacs Quartet. The Takacs did "Intimate Letters" in the fall of 2007, so I wasn't surprised that the Tasman tackled this difficult piece, too. They played it very, very well.

Do we hear Janacek on the radio? Some. It appears that the "Lachian Dances" and "Sinfonietta" are actually played with some frequency on most of the stations I monitor. A suite from "The Cunning Little Vixen" is also performed occasionally, though looking it looks like the full hour and a half opera was only broadcast once in 5 years, over KUSC in Los Angeles. "Intimate Letters" has been broadcast, but it must be too long and too complicated for the KVOD team, who have chosen not to broadcast at all in the last 5 years. What a pity!

One final note about the CU opera performance. First, clearly the students at CU must have smallish bladders. OVer the last 10 or 15 minutes of the performance, small groups of them had to get up and disturb the audience and run off to piddle (or whatever). We read in the paper about the CU students drinking a lot, but come on, guys! If we older audience members can hold it, why can't you?

Lastly there is William Gustafson, the stage director. He always sits in the back and laughs too loudly or breaks out clapping as loud as he can. I feel he is trying to indicate to us, the audience, that now is the time to show our appreciation. Please, the show deserves applause, but let us choose when and how much.

Performers or the performed?

Last night, KVOD broadcast Haydn's Cello Concerto #1. The announcer, Stephanie Wendt, praised the cellist, Matt Haimovitz, raising expectations about the performance. As I listened I wondered about his performance. What could I really sense about his playing? How did it rate compared with others? Could I tell? More importantly, could I tell over the radio?

I go to many live concerts. Live artists are always at risk during the playing. What if they flub a note, miss some, go out of tune, etc? You can watch and feel the intensity of playing and appreciate the artists' skill. But can you judge that over the radio? For me, no -- it's an imperfect medium for judging talent. Radio just can't compete against a live performance.

It turns out that the Haydn Cello Concert #1 has been performed 5 times thus far this year on KVOD. Twice by Truls Mork, twice by last night's Haimovitz and once by Jacqueline du Pre. So is it the intention of the radio station to show us different artists or to play music? I don't know. Personally, I'd rather hear different music rather than different artists playing the same piece.

How to judge a masterpiece.

I earlier commented that I had read Alex Ross's "And the Rest is Noise", an intriguing book. It's a bit of a tome, but well worth the effort. When writing about Olivier Messiaen, Ross gives somewhat short-shrift to his Turangalila Symphony and doesn't have a lot to say about Vingt Regards su L'Enfant Jesus, but at one point he refers to Des Canyons aux Étoiles (The Canyons and the Stars) as Messiaen's masterpiece. Well, after getting a copy, I have to say it really does sound like Messiaen with his distinctive percussiveness and stange chords and plent of bird-like sounds. But his masterpiece? Both Turangalila and Vingt Regards are much more impressive to me, but Ross must have some reason for favoring Des Canyons. Beats me why, though.

Given that December 10th, 2008 is the 100th anniversary of Messiaen's birth, here in Boulder we have been luck to hear quite a bit of his music. I've tracked down and listened to a lot of Messiaen lately. He's been featured by Hsing-ay Hsu several times at the University of Colorado. Wouldn't you expect some of the FM radio stations to play some of his music? Well, not yet this year. KVOD, in Denver hasn't played anything yet, nor have many of the other stations I monitor. When they do play something by him, it's typically his Quartet for the End of Time, historically significant and penetrating, but not on my all-time favorite Messiaen list.

Boulder has many music lovers, a strong music faculty at the university, several critics and a bunch of musical organizations. Surprisingly, I haven't found anyone yet that has also read Ross's book. I've lent my copy to a friend who promises to read it and give me feedback, but he hasn't yet. That's surprising for an often written-about book that made the Pulitzer finals this year.

What did they hear that I didn't?

I went to a Takacs String Quartet concert last night and was treated to the string quartet number 59, known as "The Rider" or the "The Horseman". A well-played, typically Haydn-esque quartet, As usual, the Takacs was flawless. What I got thinking about as they played was how did this get nicknamed "The Rider"? The program notes (by Andreas Anderswo) said ".. is immediately apparent after that pause that follows the unison introduction to the opening Allegro: the instruments enter one by one imitating each other with the first subject upon which a lilting subject follows". Now I ask, what does this have to do with riding horses or being a horseman? [Note: I tried to track down this Andeas Anderswo (Andrea Elsewhere???) at the University of Colorado but to no avail. However, someone in the know told me that Andreas Anderswo is the pen-name for none other than one of the local classical music critics, Wes Bloomster.]

As I sat listening, I wondered if, shortly after the premiere of this work, the composer, the performers, the patrons and some hangers-on didn't convene in a local tavern or palatial home and sit around and chat about the piece and the performance. They probably had port or something stronger and smoked their favorite tobacco and gabbed. At some point, someone probably mumbled something about "It sounded like horses" or "did you hear the loud horse's hooves rumble by during the first movement" and, wallah! a nickname was born.

I read the introduction by Anderswo and listened carefully to the opening and, for the life of me, could not get any perception of horses, riders, hooves, whatever in that opening movement. The name stuck with me and I kept wondering and, just perhaps, during the finale I might have heard something like restless horses. But what do I know?

Too often we hear on the FM radio pieces broadcast with their historical names? "Eroica", "The Prague", "The Surprise", etc, etc, etc. Sometimes they seem to mean something and sometimes not. I can understand where some of the names and tag-lines come from, but often not. It just causes me to wonder. and, in the case of "The Rider" ponder, how it all came to be named.