Listening to music is an active thing for me. Ever since I was a little kid I've always listened with my body. My fingers "play" the notes; my head bobs for emphasis; my chest heaves at some endings; feet and legs bounce and bounce and bounce. Nobody has ever complained about it, though sometimes I'm sure I get carried away. Anyway, that's how music affects me -- kinetically.
The reason I bring this up is that the other night I went to a concert of the University of Colorado's student Chamber Orchestra led by Gary Lewis. Conductors move -- that's how they conduct. I don't know why I began looking at the musicians' feet but it dawned on my that there was no motion. Only occasionally would I see some one's foot shift. Not consistently, mind you, but sometimes there was a rhythmic change of the light off the shiny patent-leather shoes. One violinist seemed agonized in wrapping his feet together, almost struggling to stay put on the chair. The pieces were Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony and Prokofiev's "Classical" symphony.
How did they hold back? Weren't they affected by the music? Didn't they get carried away, too? Why were the musicians so still?
As we walked back to the car, I was informed by one of the musicians that tapping toes to keep time is totally forbidden. Music is for the mind and not the body, except where needed to press, pull, pluck or perform a note. Silly me. Of course, it make sense, but I just never thought about it before. Good thing I don't play in an orchestra.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Singing, meaning and art
Heavy topic here. Skip if it you like. A few recent concerts have me thinking about the relationship of song words to art. How sung words give meaning.
Last week I heard a spinto soprano, Irene VanHam Friedlob, in recital with Mitsumi Moteki on piano. Spinto was a new term to me, but Wikipedia says it's 'a soprano or tenor voice of a weight between lyric and dramatic that is capable of handling large dramatic climaxes at moderate intervals.' She certain fit that description.
While mostly she sang in Italian or French or German, for the final piece she sang in English. The earlier songs had translations, while the last one didn't, of course. Most words were understandable as she sang, but not every one of them. Words would pop out clearly but their associated meaning didn't. She sang well and enunciated well but the vocal gymnastics necessary to produce song hid the meaning. I didn't think it the singer's fault.
Then this past Sunday night Thomas Hampson sang at the University of Colorado's Mackey Auditorium. It was part of his traveling 'Songs of America' series, with Wolfram Rieger on piano. The performance enthralled the audience. Hampson sings and enunciates as well as anyone. His beautiful baritone was crystal clear even at the back of the auditorium. However, to me the meaning of the songs and the cadence of the sentences from poems just weren't clear enough to understand.
An example was his singing of "The Dodger" by Aaron Copland. I've heard this fairly familiar song several times before and it's a fun song reminiscent of any earlier time in America. The stanzas refer to candidates, preachers and lovers, all "dodgers" with "Yes and I'm a dodger too!" In the intervening stanzas the singer tells why each is untrustworthy. It was here in all cases that the meaning got lost. I don't remember clearly enough if the music was different, but there was something that hid the words explaining why these reputable folk weren't so. You couldn't read the words as the singing progressed because of the lighting. But would that have helped?
So was art preserved? Did the combination of piano and singer and words and music yield good art? Entertainment, surely. But did the composer accomplish what he set out to do? I'm confused here.
Last night CU's favorite baritone, Patrick Mason, sang some Rachmaninoff songs in a recital with Alexandra Nguyen on piano. There was no question of understanding anything sung -- it was all in Russian. So was Rachmaninoff's art achieved? I quickly read some of the translations, but the meaning could only be inferred by some chords, vocal lines, facial expressions and timing. Enjoyable, of course. But successful art?
I'll end with a question that's been simmering within me for years. Is vocal musical art almost always failed art? Is opera, the epitomy of vocal musical art by definition failed art?
Last week I heard a spinto soprano, Irene VanHam Friedlob, in recital with Mitsumi Moteki on piano. Spinto was a new term to me, but Wikipedia says it's 'a soprano or tenor voice of a weight between lyric and dramatic that is capable of handling large dramatic climaxes at moderate intervals.' She certain fit that description.
While mostly she sang in Italian or French or German, for the final piece she sang in English. The earlier songs had translations, while the last one didn't, of course. Most words were understandable as she sang, but not every one of them. Words would pop out clearly but their associated meaning didn't. She sang well and enunciated well but the vocal gymnastics necessary to produce song hid the meaning. I didn't think it the singer's fault.
Then this past Sunday night Thomas Hampson sang at the University of Colorado's Mackey Auditorium. It was part of his traveling 'Songs of America' series, with Wolfram Rieger on piano. The performance enthralled the audience. Hampson sings and enunciates as well as anyone. His beautiful baritone was crystal clear even at the back of the auditorium. However, to me the meaning of the songs and the cadence of the sentences from poems just weren't clear enough to understand.
An example was his singing of "The Dodger" by Aaron Copland. I've heard this fairly familiar song several times before and it's a fun song reminiscent of any earlier time in America. The stanzas refer to candidates, preachers and lovers, all "dodgers" with "Yes and I'm a dodger too!" In the intervening stanzas the singer tells why each is untrustworthy. It was here in all cases that the meaning got lost. I don't remember clearly enough if the music was different, but there was something that hid the words explaining why these reputable folk weren't so. You couldn't read the words as the singing progressed because of the lighting. But would that have helped?
So was art preserved? Did the combination of piano and singer and words and music yield good art? Entertainment, surely. But did the composer accomplish what he set out to do? I'm confused here.
Last night CU's favorite baritone, Patrick Mason, sang some Rachmaninoff songs in a recital with Alexandra Nguyen on piano. There was no question of understanding anything sung -- it was all in Russian. So was Rachmaninoff's art achieved? I quickly read some of the translations, but the meaning could only be inferred by some chords, vocal lines, facial expressions and timing. Enjoyable, of course. But successful art?
I'll end with a question that's been simmering within me for years. Is vocal musical art almost always failed art? Is opera, the epitomy of vocal musical art by definition failed art?
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Two good concerts
Friday night the University of Colorado Symphony Orchestra, lead by Gary Lewis, offered its first concert for the semester. There were three works on the program, all of which tested this young orchestra and all of which were performed very well. The control and evenness of the strings impressed me. I particularly liked Daniel Kellogg's "Western Skies", musical ruminations on the Colorado landscape. Last year at one of the Pendulum Series programs (I think) another Colorado-inspired Kellogg piece was premiered and I liked it too. This was not a premiere for "Western Skies", as it been played by the National Symphony Orchestra in places as far away as Japan and Korea. It is a full orchestra, fairly loud reflection on the openness of the plains, the crystalline clearness of snowy night and the dramatic jump into the mountains. How big a jump? The lowest point in Boulder County is 4890 feet above sea level, the highest 14,255 at the top of Long's Peak. That is a 9365 feet difference in one county, 1.8 miles! Kellogg is from back east (Yale) where the horizon is always muffled by trees and more trees, so his music reflects his agoraphobic reaction to all this open space. "Western Skies" would sound wonderful if it were performed in the thundering wooden shed of Boulder's Chauttauqua Auditorium with Michael Christie leading the Colorado Music Festival.
The second half of the concert was Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony", enthusiastically played. Lewis was so energetic in his conducting that he poked his baton into the principal cellist's instrument and dropped it from the stage.
The other night a new vocal faculty member at Colorado, soprano Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson, made her local debut as part of the Faculty Tuesdays. What a stunning opening! All her selections were female roles "Speaking Her Mind". Particularly striking were two excerpts from Gounod's "Faust" where first an impressionable Marguerite sings of her beauty into a mirror, and then later pregnant bemoans her abandonment. Bird's voice was wonderful and her facial expressions outstanding. As she got into Frau Fluth's character she shot a glance at the pianist Christopher Zemliauskas that told the audience who was in control. Once again the University of Colorado as snared another terrific singer.
The second half of the concert was Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony", enthusiastically played. Lewis was so energetic in his conducting that he poked his baton into the principal cellist's instrument and dropped it from the stage.
The other night a new vocal faculty member at Colorado, soprano Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson, made her local debut as part of the Faculty Tuesdays. What a stunning opening! All her selections were female roles "Speaking Her Mind". Particularly striking were two excerpts from Gounod's "Faust" where first an impressionable Marguerite sings of her beauty into a mirror, and then later pregnant bemoans her abandonment. Bird's voice was wonderful and her facial expressions outstanding. As she got into Frau Fluth's character she shot a glance at the pianist Christopher Zemliauskas that told the audience who was in control. Once again the University of Colorado as snared another terrific singer.
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