Outside Perspective

in the lobby - Elizabeth Perry

We had hot chocolate and enjoyed the big tree in Heinz Hall's lobby before going in for the holiday pops concert on Saturday night. Audience members took photos in front of the tree, and ushers wore Santa hats. Many small children and family groups... people seemed to be there for the spectacle and for tradition's sake. I think I prefer listening to longer works or at least a more consistent program, but the variety kept the pace moving along, and the mood was jolly, and Attack Theatre brings energy and perspective to anything, anywhere, so it was great to see what they brought to the collaboration. Really, I'll seek any excuse to hear the orchestra...

Messiah, by Handel - Doug Bauman

My concert going experience Friday night was rather atypical. I went by myself. Other than the "Hallelujah" chorus, I had never heard any other parts of Handel's Messiah before. It was different, in several ways, than any classical concert I have attended. The orchestra was sparse, mostly strings, a few piccolos, a bassoon, later a few trumpets, and the keyboard player ping-ponging his way back and forth between the harpsichord and the organ. The choir was smaller than other occasions, but 43 was still a good size and sounded great. I really liked listening to that bassoon, on this occasion it was easy to discern.

Somehow I expected this composition to be more completely filled with chorus. I did enjoy the chorus and solo singers immensely, but I didn't quite expect so much of the traditional classical parts of the composition, the beautiful baroque orchestral music. These parts would really be interesting if put together in a form without the chorus, but then that wouldn't be the point.

I couldn't help but notice the audience around me. One fellow in particular had what appeared to be the complete score, faded yellow and a bit frayed. He seemed to be overjoyed to be there, and often showed the score to his friend beside him. He followed along with the music, mostly reading the score rather than watching the stage below. I was enthralled with his enthusiasm, it was contagious, and I couldn't help but frequently follow his actions. After a while I figured he must be a music director himself, perhaps of a local college or high school, and he was here to listen, observe, compare and somehow gather together his own impressions of how he would direct his own performance based on the show we were all enjoying.

There were others around me who were singing along at parts, especially the Hallelujah Chorus, even though the sing along wasn't this night. I believe the program was switched. Originally there was to be an audience sing-along on Friday evening, but it had been switched to Saturday. When they announced that at the beginning, some moaned and groaned, others laughed and seemed relieved.

I thoroughly enjoyed this experience, I can't wait to go back next year.

I wrote this description while watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on TV. At the end, when he is glad to live again, George Bailey, is hugging his kids and says "Hallelujah"! Now there's a sentiment with which I can thoroughly concur. "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings"

decoration - Elizabeth Perry

In spite of snow, I was able to make it to hear Handel's Messiah tonight. Heinz Hall was all decked for the holidays, with tree, and wreaths, and garlands. My favorite decorations were the wall paintings, though, and they are always there. I liked the way the top of this one made me think of a Christmas tree.

Behind the Scenes: Violas and Alcohol - Justin Kownacki

Although I enjoyed Friday night's PSO performance, I now find myself incapable of just enjoying a performance; I have to analyze it -- because, as a blogger, I have to find my angle.  (This is the same paradox that disrupted my pleasure in any CD I ever reviewed during my tenure as a music critic: a great performance is no longer good enough, because I'm now in search of a story.)

As often happens, this weekend's story happened offstage.  Not behind it, but rather a block away from it, during the reception held at Olive or Twist by the PSO's New Leadership Board.  (I'm not a new leader, but I play one in public.)  Here, I had the opportunity to discuss the evening's performance with other symphony-goers, musicians and devotees, which provided a much richer context for the music than I would have experienced otherwise.

It also reminded me that all musicians are complicated humans with their own egos, needs and aspirations.  (And, frequently, an off-color sense of humor that doesn't translate well to an all-ages blog...)

Among the many tidbits I gleaned over a Guinness or two:

• Nick and Ranaan, two thirds of visiting improvisational trio Time for Three, mentioned that this was only the 6th time that they'd played the evening's composition, Concerto 4-3, by Jennifer Higdon.  Considering their ingenuity as musicians, I'd never have known that they were still, in theory, getting the hang of this piece.
• One of the area's viola players explained how he makes a living as a freelance musician, currently contracted by three different regional organizations.  (He'd also played the Higdon piece's debut.)
• Like most jobs, orchestras respond differently to each conductor, playing their hearts out for some and just going through the motions for others.  The audience may not notice the difference, but observing musicians can usually identify these clues.
• One local composer is about to debut two new works -- one in Utah, and one performed here by Pittsburgh's gay chorus.  That ironic juxtaposition is, he assures me, completely unintentional...
• Time for Three were quite pleased to report that they were staying in the same hotel as the Dallas Cowboys... particularly because the Cowboys' cheerleaders were rumored to be staying on the floor above theirs.

And perhaps that's the lasting lesson I'll retain from this weekend: when simply hearing music is no longer "enough" to satisfy one's cultural curiosity, it helps to know who's playing it, how, and why.

But it's even better to know what they do when they're not on stage, because an artist's personality puts all art in context.

From the archives: Pictures at an Exhibition - Doug Bauman

Last night on WQED 89.3 I listened again to the concert recored 11 months ago. I'm glad they record the PSO and replay those concerts on Sunday evenings. Since I missed the live concert Saturday night because of snow, I thought I'd at least share my thoughts from the concert that I attended last January (Jan 11, 2008). Leonard Slatkin, one of my favorite conductors, led the PSO on both occasions.

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Alle von Leben ist lediglich eine Chance, eine Koinzidenz, eine Fingerfertigkeit, alle gefüllte mit freudig kleinen Momenten des glücklicher Zufall.

All of life is merely a chance, a coincidence, a sleight of hand, all filled with fun little moments of serendipity.

I went to see a Red Violin, and ended up seeing Pictures at an Exhibition
(a play on words :)

Samuel Barber : Essay No. 2, Opus 17
John Corigliano : Concerto for Violin and Orchestra ("The Red Violin")
Mr. Bell
Modest Mussorgsky : Pictures at an Exhibition

Superb! After the concert, Mr. Corigliano, Mr. Bell and the conductor Leonard Slatkin
had a discussion for the audience about music and The Red Violin (Joshua Bell discusses Red Violin)

While Mr. Bell was outstanding, I would be remiss if I did not say that I really liked the performance of Pictures at an Exhibition by Mr. Slatkin and the members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Bell may have been the star, but the orchestra was all of the heavens combined, raveled all around the concert hall, with symphonic flourishes and real live stereophonic experience, complete with the best basses you've ever heard!

I could listen to this orchestration over and over again. From the program notes: "In the present concerts we hear a new edition of Ravel's score by Leonard Slatkin, which Mr. Slatkin introduced at the Hollywood Bowl last summer."

December 6: Leonard Slatkin - David DeAngelo

The weather outside (near) frightful
But the music so delightful...

Lotsa interesting things to say about this concert, folks - so let's get started.

I guessing, first off, that the weather must've had something to do with the size of the crowd.  While it certainly was more (much more) than "sparse," the hall was just as certainly less than full - as far as I could tell.  No biggie, though.  The band played great from top to bottom, from Andres Cardenes to Craig Knox.

And while it's always difficult to nail down the details of any sort of national character in music, tonight's program was filled entirely with "American" music - great American music at that.  The evening began with the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein.  I have to admit I was always more impressed with Bernstein's conducting than his composing.  Don't get me wrong, he was a great composer and West Side Story is a great score (as is Candide, for that matter or Chicester Psalms - I could go on but the list is very long) and a Bernstein sneeze is more musical than anything I could ever do, but when the story of 20th Century music is finally written, my guess is that Bernstein's name is higher up on the list of important conductors than important composers - if only for championing the music of Ives and Mahler, not to mention The Unanswered Question lectures and the series of Beethoven symphonies he conduced for PBS in the 1980s. 

Back to the show - I can't say enough about how well the orchestra played.  Conductor Leonard Slatkin (snappily dressed in a black suit, black shirt, black tie but a dark red hanky - Martin Blank chic, I guess) swaggered and swayed appropriately and conducted some with a baton and some without.  It was all rock solid.  Absolutely rock solid.

I hate to admit it, but I initially saw the next piece, Concerto 4-3 by Jennifer Higdon, as merely "the piece I didn't know sitting between the two I did."  Sorry for that.  I do remember hearing the PSO play Higdon's blue cathedral a few years ago and found it, at the very least, a very interesting work - deep and multi-layered without being inaccessible.  Part way through last night's Concerto, however, I blinked a few times realizing that I was paying very very close attention what was happening on stage.  I knew that something very important was going and I didn't want to miss any part of it.  It all kinda snuck up on me.  The piece, written for and dedicated to the trio Time for Three, mixed, blended, and pureed bluegrass and the sounds of a full symphony orchestra - but it wasn't merely a simple content/frame sort of thing.  The trio (a bass player, seated, and two fiddlers, one taller, one shorter) all played some amazing lines - so amazing I shudder to think how it was all written down (A question to the composer: how WAS all that written down??).  The compositional edges between the soloists and the orchestra - the concertino and the ripieno in musicology-speak - were seamless - and yet the "bluegrass" material didn't seem at all forced into an unwelcome setting.  It was simply amazing.

The last piece, the Third Symphony of Aaron Copland was written at the end of the Second World War.  According to Marc Rohr's program notes, there's not real story or plot to the symphony though Copland admitted it might "reflect the euphoric spirit" of the country right after the defeat of the Axis powers.  It's full of the instantly recognizable Copland-esqe gestures.  Listen carefully and you can hear similar orchestrational settings from Appalachian Spring, Lincoln Portrait, etc.

Stunningly ending with a resetting of the now-famous Fanfare for the Common Man, one grand irony of this most "American" symphony comes from knowing it's placement in recent American history.  Given that as it was written at the end of the Second World War that also means it was written at the beginning of the Cold War - a war on many fronts, foreign and domestic.  One of those domestic fronts being the "red scare" of the 1950s.  And that grand irony?  After much of Aaron Copland's "American" work was composed, he was by mid-1953 called to testify before Senator McCarthy's committee for his alleged "communist affiliations."  His name was found on the "Red Channels" list - as was Bernstein's.

One more thing left unsaid in the program notes - One of the most interesting parts of a most interesting evening came in realizing that none of the three great American composers played in last night's concert was straight.  This is not to suppose any sort of "gay sensibility" in the composition of music - the Copland was different enough from the Bernstein and each of those were different enough from the Hidgon to belie that notion, but in a post-Proposition 8 America, what does it all mean?

It was all great American music.

snowed in - Elizabeth Perry

After it took my husband half an hour to drive half a mile on Fifth Avenue early this evening, I realized with some sadness that I would not be able to get downtown for the concert this evening. I phoned the box office to turn in my tickets and then drew a view out the window while we listened to the radio.

"Thunder Only Happens When It's Raining..." - Jennifer Pizzuto

For those who are not familiar with Kennywood, it’s a charming little amusement park that touts a unique roller coaster called The Thunderbolt.  It cleverly utilizes the hilly topography of Western Pennsylvania by plunging the train down a steep ravine immediately upon leaving the leaving the station.  There is no tension-filled, clanky ascent—the thrill begins straight away, without granting the rider any time to prepare.

And that, my friends, epitomizes my experience at the symphony on Sunday.

Honeck began with flair, choosing a “mystery piece” that was absolutely brilliant.  (It was Franz Schmidt’s “Notre Dame: Intermezzo and Carnival Music.”  The orchestra played the first movement, “Intermezzo.”)  I have never connected with a piece of music as completely as I connected with that one.  I don’t know if Schmidt meant the piece to be painful but it was, all at once beautiful and terrible.  Wave after wave of emotion overtook me as I absorbed the extravagant sound that the orchestra dolefully wailed.  I wailed along with it and my face was a disgusting, snotty mess by the end.  Schmidt got it—the music struck all of the right chords, emphasizing the vulnerability of my own heart.  I wanted to scream, “Do you know what you’re doing to me?!” and yet, despite the pain, it was maddening when it ended.  It was truly a raw, human connection, an emotional catharsis. 

And then there’s Mozart.  He annoys me greatly. Yes, he was a musical genius and remains a timeless composer but that does not negate my constant irritation.  His music is light and dreamy in a Stevie-Nicks-is-my-fairy-godmother sort of way.  The very fact that he reminds me of Stevie Nicks is just creepy, like Mozart himself.  Concerto No. 21 was quirky and surprising, though I did not find it to be nearly as engaging as “Intermezzo.”   I would absolutely love to duke it out with Mozart, though fact that he has been dead for a few centuries poses a slight problem.  I guess that our issues will remain forever unresolved.

I must mention that Honeck was extremely chatty and charming on Sunday!  I completely adore his wit and the music is greatly enhanced by his commentary.  I was also fortunate enough to have my very first “a-ha!” moment, which I hope that everyone who visits the symphony is lucky enough to experience.  I was mesmerized by the volume fluctuations in Die Libelle.  I thought that they were merely “interesting” until I realized exactly what was happening—the orchestra was mimicking a dragonfly using musical imagery.  The realization struck me like a thunderbolt; it was quite extraordinary.

Sunday’s performance was packed with a plethora of goodies and surprises, not the least of which included a spoof of Western Pennsylvania's obsession with hunting (it’s the most wonderful time of the year, of course).  It was absolutely my favorite performance thus far… and next time, I’ll be sure to remember the water-proof mascara and tissues.