The New Yorker, Mar. 12 issue
Jane Mayer, article on Christopher Steele:
Steele was born in 1964 in Aden, then the capital of Yemen. (p. 51)
Adam Gopnik, review of Andrew Lloyd Webber's memoirs:
You learn how Lloyd Webber composed "Cats" and "Chess" and the rest (p. 74)
Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Monday, March 12, 2018
English suites and others no. 28
In our last entry, the French composer Gabriel Fauré was writing piano pieces to entertain his ladyfriend's small daughter, which he assembled into a suite, the Dolly Suite, that was later orchestrated by somebody else.
Today we're about a dozen years later. The somewhat younger French composer Claude Debussy is writing piano pieces to entertain his own small daughter, which he assembled into a suite, the Children's Corner Suite, that was later orchestrated by somebody else.
The even better coincidence is that the two little girls had the same mother. She was a singer named Emma Moyse, first married name Bardac. After her affair with Fauré, her son Raoul ("Mi-a-ou" of the Dolly Suite) was a piano pupil of Debussy's. His mother and his teacher threw up their respective spouses and ran off to England together, having their own daughter and getting married, in that order. Where the older girl was nicknamed Dolly, this one was called Chou-Chou.
The pieces her dad wrote for her are: Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum (0.00), Jimbo's Lullaby (2.24), Serenade for the Doll (6.13), The Snow is Dancing (8.51), The Little Shepherd (11.34), and Golliwogg's Cakewalk (13.54).
(Some of those movement titles could use annotation. Gradus ad Parnassum was the title of a famous 18th-century music textbook, and Debussy's piano original is a finger exercise. Jimbo is, it says here, a French pronunciation of Jumbo, which was the pseudo-African name of a circus elephant so famous in its day that the mere name became a word meaning "very large." I bet you didn't know that origin. And if you don't know what a golliwogg was, you're better off. A golliwogg, name taken from a series of now mercifully-forgotten English children's books, was a doll in the shape of a grotesque caricature of a black person and probably the origin of the ethnic slur found in its final syllable. After it was realized how offensive these dolls were, they were nevertheless defended as innocent mementos of their defenders' childhoods, sort of the English equivalent of Zwarte Piet. Try not to think of that as you listen to the Cakewalk, the only extroverted music Debussy ever wrote.)
Today we're about a dozen years later. The somewhat younger French composer Claude Debussy is writing piano pieces to entertain his own small daughter, which he assembled into a suite, the Children's Corner Suite, that was later orchestrated by somebody else.
The even better coincidence is that the two little girls had the same mother. She was a singer named Emma Moyse, first married name Bardac. After her affair with Fauré, her son Raoul ("Mi-a-ou" of the Dolly Suite) was a piano pupil of Debussy's. His mother and his teacher threw up their respective spouses and ran off to England together, having their own daughter and getting married, in that order. Where the older girl was nicknamed Dolly, this one was called Chou-Chou.
The pieces her dad wrote for her are: Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum (0.00), Jimbo's Lullaby (2.24), Serenade for the Doll (6.13), The Snow is Dancing (8.51), The Little Shepherd (11.34), and Golliwogg's Cakewalk (13.54).
(Some of those movement titles could use annotation. Gradus ad Parnassum was the title of a famous 18th-century music textbook, and Debussy's piano original is a finger exercise. Jimbo is, it says here, a French pronunciation of Jumbo, which was the pseudo-African name of a circus elephant so famous in its day that the mere name became a word meaning "very large." I bet you didn't know that origin. And if you don't know what a golliwogg was, you're better off. A golliwogg, name taken from a series of now mercifully-forgotten English children's books, was a doll in the shape of a grotesque caricature of a black person and probably the origin of the ethnic slur found in its final syllable. After it was realized how offensive these dolls were, they were nevertheless defended as innocent mementos of their defenders' childhoods, sort of the English equivalent of Zwarte Piet. Try not to think of that as you listen to the Cakewalk, the only extroverted music Debussy ever wrote.)
Sunday, March 11, 2018
book discussion: The Treasure of the Isle of Mist
Recently I was shown an early review of The Hobbit (Horn Book, March 1938). The reviewer described the book as unlike Alice or Wind in the Willows. Praising it for being "firmly rooted in Beowulf and authentic Saxon lore," she found "something in common" with William Morris and with W.W. Tarn's The Treasure of the Isle of Mist.
I was reminded of early reviews of The Lord of the Rings, which similarly cast around wildly looking for something to compare this work to, usually also landing on William Morris among others. Well, I know Morris, but what was The Treasure of the Isle of Mist? I found this 1919 publication on Project Gutenberg, and, liking the Tolkienesque donnish whimsy of the opening, proposed it as a topic for our Mythopoeic Society book-discussion group.
We mostly enjoyed the book, but didn't find it very Tolkienesque on the whole. A. agreed with me about the donnish whimsy, and copied out some favorite passages. C. identified a few other Tolkienesque aspects: the narrative voice and the depiction of the landscape (which he was able to identify as the island of Skye). I noted also that the heroine Fiona's ability to speak with animals that others can't understand has a faint resemblance to the role of the thrush in The Hobbit.
E. was the most critical, saying that The Hobbit is much more original and less formulaic. This book is twee and over-moralistic, like George MacDonald. The Faerie sequence in the latter part of the book has the air of a religious allegory a la Pilgrim's Progress, though M. added that there's nothing Christian or mythopoeic about the actual content. B. thought of Lewis Carroll and E. Nesbit, and others named L. Frank Baum and the archetypal hero's journey from Joseph Campbell. C. found a long discussion of the book online that names more comparable works, in particular The Crock of Gold.
M. observed that the plot, though nominally a quest, is more of a simple fairy tale than a quest as Tolkien would tell it; and we noted other fairy-tale elements. C. commented that the wandering fairy king is a traditional fairy-tale element, and E. and I simultaneously chimed in with Smith of Wootton Major as another example. J. noted that Fiona is, like so many children in fairy tales, motherless. She is said to be 15, a relatively advanced age which surprised some of us. B. summarized the theme as a morality play about maturing out of a childhood connection to Faerie. Her father's role as a mentor who's sympathetic to the idea of Faerie but disclaims any personal knowledge of it, until at the end he's revealed to have gone there himself as a child, reminded me strongly of Prof. Kirke in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew.
We don't know if Lewis, or Tolkien, ever read this book, though they easily could have. It was reprinted in the 1930s and is mentioned often in the 1938 volume of Horn Book, so it was a popular book in its time. The more whimsical Marvellous Land of Snergs by E.A. Wyke-Smith is the children's book of the time that Tolkien is known to have read and been influenced by.
The conversation, always volatile, suddenly veered to Salman Rushdie, and the book topic discussion was over.
I was reminded of early reviews of The Lord of the Rings, which similarly cast around wildly looking for something to compare this work to, usually also landing on William Morris among others. Well, I know Morris, but what was The Treasure of the Isle of Mist? I found this 1919 publication on Project Gutenberg, and, liking the Tolkienesque donnish whimsy of the opening, proposed it as a topic for our Mythopoeic Society book-discussion group.
We mostly enjoyed the book, but didn't find it very Tolkienesque on the whole. A. agreed with me about the donnish whimsy, and copied out some favorite passages. C. identified a few other Tolkienesque aspects: the narrative voice and the depiction of the landscape (which he was able to identify as the island of Skye). I noted also that the heroine Fiona's ability to speak with animals that others can't understand has a faint resemblance to the role of the thrush in The Hobbit.
E. was the most critical, saying that The Hobbit is much more original and less formulaic. This book is twee and over-moralistic, like George MacDonald. The Faerie sequence in the latter part of the book has the air of a religious allegory a la Pilgrim's Progress, though M. added that there's nothing Christian or mythopoeic about the actual content. B. thought of Lewis Carroll and E. Nesbit, and others named L. Frank Baum and the archetypal hero's journey from Joseph Campbell. C. found a long discussion of the book online that names more comparable works, in particular The Crock of Gold.
M. observed that the plot, though nominally a quest, is more of a simple fairy tale than a quest as Tolkien would tell it; and we noted other fairy-tale elements. C. commented that the wandering fairy king is a traditional fairy-tale element, and E. and I simultaneously chimed in with Smith of Wootton Major as another example. J. noted that Fiona is, like so many children in fairy tales, motherless. She is said to be 15, a relatively advanced age which surprised some of us. B. summarized the theme as a morality play about maturing out of a childhood connection to Faerie. Her father's role as a mentor who's sympathetic to the idea of Faerie but disclaims any personal knowledge of it, until at the end he's revealed to have gone there himself as a child, reminded me strongly of Prof. Kirke in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew.
We don't know if Lewis, or Tolkien, ever read this book, though they easily could have. It was reprinted in the 1930s and is mentioned often in the 1938 volume of Horn Book, so it was a popular book in its time. The more whimsical Marvellous Land of Snergs by E.A. Wyke-Smith is the children's book of the time that Tolkien is known to have read and been influenced by.
The conversation, always volatile, suddenly veered to Salman Rushdie, and the book topic discussion was over.
Saturday, March 10, 2018
concert review: San Francisco Symphony
First-time guest conductor Edward Gardner turned out to be a good match for SFS, which delivered hot and sizzling performances of a variety of mid-20C work that the hegemony would have disapproved of.
Tippett's Ritual Dances do not sound at all like dances, but they're colorfully orchestrated and were clearly very well played. Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, on the other hand, do sound like dances when they're properly played, which they often aren't but were here. Five parts drama and intensity to three parts beauty, mixed in a soup of care and devotion to the details of the music, was a good combination.
Even more interesting was Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which got the same tight, dramatic treatment, with an obvious application of great care in rehearsing the orchestral playing. Carey Bell's wailing clarinet opening had a striking caustic freedom, and the big romantic theme for strings (the one accompanying the daydream sequence in the Fantasia 2000 animation) was played with the slightest touch of portamento on the large melodic leaps. I was astonished, as it's almost impossible to get modern string players to perform this way: I've seen them try.
The pianist, Simon Trpčeski, seemed to lose his grip at one point and mugged at the audience. Then for an encore he began by announcing that it was International Women's Day, and then played an arrangement of "Take Five" of Dave Brubeck Quartet fame, a work with no connection to a woman known to me.
Speaking of women, Lisa Irontongue has been casting a mostly disapproving eye on the place of women composers in upcoming season announcements, and gives SFS a particularly withering glare. I have my renewal form here, and it's not particularly enticing: a lot of solid good stuff, but mostly conventional ones. For instance, in September there'll be two weeks of another MTT Stravinsky festival, and what is it featuring? The three classic 1910-13 ballets. True, they're great pieces, but they're not the end-all of Stravinsky. A month later, the Mariinsky Orchestra is visiting with an all-Stravinsky program of its own including both of his mature orchestral symphonies. Now that's interesting, and I may go. Blomstedt, who's been visiting for two weeks every year since his retirement from music director, has now gone down to one week, with the Pastorale and the Scottish, not too taxing for an old man. And who's conducting Bruckner 5 - admittedly a fairly edgy choice for that composer - in his stead? Jaap van Zweden, a hot name right now due to his recent appointment to the NY Phil.
But back to women composers. There's just one work by a living woman composer. The good news is that it's by Anna Clyne, who's tremendously creative, and the other good news is that it's on my concert series. So is the one week from Krzysztof Urbański, and this is interesting. This year he was here for two weeks, and patriotically included one Polish composer each - Penderecki and Lutoslawski - on his otherwise standard programs. A small discussion broke out in the SFCV review and comment section on who should be his flag-waver when he returned, and I'm pleased that one of my suggestions won out: Grazyna Bacewicz, Poland's leading female composer. She's not living, but by sex alone that makes two.
Tippett's Ritual Dances do not sound at all like dances, but they're colorfully orchestrated and were clearly very well played. Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, on the other hand, do sound like dances when they're properly played, which they often aren't but were here. Five parts drama and intensity to three parts beauty, mixed in a soup of care and devotion to the details of the music, was a good combination.
Even more interesting was Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which got the same tight, dramatic treatment, with an obvious application of great care in rehearsing the orchestral playing. Carey Bell's wailing clarinet opening had a striking caustic freedom, and the big romantic theme for strings (the one accompanying the daydream sequence in the Fantasia 2000 animation) was played with the slightest touch of portamento on the large melodic leaps. I was astonished, as it's almost impossible to get modern string players to perform this way: I've seen them try.
The pianist, Simon Trpčeski, seemed to lose his grip at one point and mugged at the audience. Then for an encore he began by announcing that it was International Women's Day, and then played an arrangement of "Take Five" of Dave Brubeck Quartet fame, a work with no connection to a woman known to me.
Speaking of women, Lisa Irontongue has been casting a mostly disapproving eye on the place of women composers in upcoming season announcements, and gives SFS a particularly withering glare. I have my renewal form here, and it's not particularly enticing: a lot of solid good stuff, but mostly conventional ones. For instance, in September there'll be two weeks of another MTT Stravinsky festival, and what is it featuring? The three classic 1910-13 ballets. True, they're great pieces, but they're not the end-all of Stravinsky. A month later, the Mariinsky Orchestra is visiting with an all-Stravinsky program of its own including both of his mature orchestral symphonies. Now that's interesting, and I may go. Blomstedt, who's been visiting for two weeks every year since his retirement from music director, has now gone down to one week, with the Pastorale and the Scottish, not too taxing for an old man. And who's conducting Bruckner 5 - admittedly a fairly edgy choice for that composer - in his stead? Jaap van Zweden, a hot name right now due to his recent appointment to the NY Phil.
But back to women composers. There's just one work by a living woman composer. The good news is that it's by Anna Clyne, who's tremendously creative, and the other good news is that it's on my concert series. So is the one week from Krzysztof Urbański, and this is interesting. This year he was here for two weeks, and patriotically included one Polish composer each - Penderecki and Lutoslawski - on his otherwise standard programs. A small discussion broke out in the SFCV review and comment section on who should be his flag-waver when he returned, and I'm pleased that one of my suggestions won out: Grazyna Bacewicz, Poland's leading female composer. She's not living, but by sex alone that makes two.
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
the lessons of Tartuffe
While I was on the SCU campus for their student symphony concert on Saturday, I saw a poster for a concurrent student production of Tartuffe. This caught my attention as it'd been over 30 years since I'd seen that play and I was happy to consider it again, but also because Tartuffe had come across my radar that morning in a different context: I'd found that there will be a production of it on in London while I'll be there briefly in a couple months. But it didn't fit my schedule.
So I was all the more moved to show up for the matinee next day. The cast was all competent, though a little over-declamatory and a little under-inspired. The main problem was having students of all the same age play three generations of characters left it a bit unclear who was supposed to be which and how old they were.
In Act 2, after Orgon has been disillusioned about Tartuffe's sham piety, he declares furiously that he'll never trust a religious man again. And his brother-in-law, a character who seems to exist purely to be everyone else's moral conscience, advises him that skepticism can be just as unwise as gullibility.
And yes, I was feeling the force of that lesson. That morning I'd twice gotten recorded-message phone calls that started out by saying they were from some fraud department. Figuring they'd be from the sort of scammers who want you to install malware on your computer, I hung up both times.
Only as I hung up the second time did I suddenly realize it might be legitimate, regarding the online overseas credit card transaction I'd made that morning for such performances I could fit into my schedule in London. I know well enough from past experience that credit issuers hyperventilate at unwarned foreign transactions, even online. At the box office for Tartuffe I asked them to run that card, and sure enough it was blocked.
So if I was going to fix this promptly, and I thought I should, it was going to have to be done by cell phone over the next half hour before the show started. This was accomplished, but I have to say: I'm told there exist people who've actually given up their landlines so that they can do all their phone business by mobile. I can't imagine possibly doing that. Anything longer than quick appointment-setting checkins on a cell phone is totally nightmarish. But you won't learn that from Tartuffe.
So I was all the more moved to show up for the matinee next day. The cast was all competent, though a little over-declamatory and a little under-inspired. The main problem was having students of all the same age play three generations of characters left it a bit unclear who was supposed to be which and how old they were.
In Act 2, after Orgon has been disillusioned about Tartuffe's sham piety, he declares furiously that he'll never trust a religious man again. And his brother-in-law, a character who seems to exist purely to be everyone else's moral conscience, advises him that skepticism can be just as unwise as gullibility.
And yes, I was feeling the force of that lesson. That morning I'd twice gotten recorded-message phone calls that started out by saying they were from some fraud department. Figuring they'd be from the sort of scammers who want you to install malware on your computer, I hung up both times.
Only as I hung up the second time did I suddenly realize it might be legitimate, regarding the online overseas credit card transaction I'd made that morning for such performances I could fit into my schedule in London. I know well enough from past experience that credit issuers hyperventilate at unwarned foreign transactions, even online. At the box office for Tartuffe I asked them to run that card, and sure enough it was blocked.
So if I was going to fix this promptly, and I thought I should, it was going to have to be done by cell phone over the next half hour before the show started. This was accomplished, but I have to say: I'm told there exist people who've actually given up their landlines so that they can do all their phone business by mobile. I can't imagine possibly doing that. Anything longer than quick appointment-setting checkins on a cell phone is totally nightmarish. But you won't learn that from Tartuffe.
English suites and others no. 27
Gabriel Fauré was a pupil of Saint-Saëns. His Dolly Suite is a fine example of the perfectly French lightness and delicacy with which he composed.
Dolly was the nickname of the small daughter of the woman whom Fauré was seeing extracurricularly, shall we say. Fauré originally wrote these as piano pieces to entertain the girl. Later, her mother divorced and remarried to Claude Debussy. Another tale hangs on that, which I'll get to.
The movements are Berceuse (0.00), Mi-a-ou (2.29), Dolly's Garden (4.48), Kitty Waltz (7.57), Tenderness (11.23), and The Spanish Step (15.27). You may think you see cat references in these titles. You do not! "Mi-a-ou" was Dolly's early attempt to say the name of her brother Raoul, and Kitty was the name of their dog.
Dolly was the nickname of the small daughter of the woman whom Fauré was seeing extracurricularly, shall we say. Fauré originally wrote these as piano pieces to entertain the girl. Later, her mother divorced and remarried to Claude Debussy. Another tale hangs on that, which I'll get to.
The movements are Berceuse (0.00), Mi-a-ou (2.29), Dolly's Garden (4.48), Kitty Waltz (7.57), Tenderness (11.23), and The Spanish Step (15.27). You may think you see cat references in these titles. You do not! "Mi-a-ou" was Dolly's early attempt to say the name of her brother Raoul, and Kitty was the name of their dog.
Monday, March 5, 2018
Oscar the critic
True, I enjoy watching Oscar broadcasts. I prepared a meatloaf before the broadcast began at 5 pm - having finally realized (I'm slow) that I ought to scramble the other ingredients together before adding the ground turkey, to aid in evenly mixing it - and popped it in the oven during the first commercial break, to minimize the amount of time I had to spend not watching the show.
Thoughts:
*Isn't encouraging winners to speak out on social issues and offering them a jet ski if they're brief kind of a contradictory message? As well as a piece of tone-deaf conspicuous consumption?
*And it didn't work, the costume designer who wrapped it up in some 30 seconds being such an obvious winner that nobody else need try. My heart was with Roger Deakins, who began by saying he'd better think of something to say or he might wind up with a jet ski. I wouldn't want one either, nor would I have any place to put it. (Temporary possession of a third car - my mother's after her death, until the title cleared and we could sell it - stumped me until I rented a storage locker large enough to drive a car into.)
*And of course Best Costume Design went to the movie that was about costume design.
*Despite Kimmel promising they wouldn't do that, the orchestra did try to nudge over-wordy winners offstage with music, they just didn't try to drown the speakers out with it. I like the idea of multiple winners for one award all getting to speak with each successive one being briefer; I don't like the second guy (it's always men) thanking the same body of co-workers the first guy thanked.
*Best Picture went to what my ever-witty friend Lee calls Mutey and the Beast, a movie that touches on countering as many different forms of prejudice as they could fit in one story. It's also either SF or fantasy, I'm not sure which, the Oscar glory of which is another old prejudice overcome. I haven't seen it yet, but would like to as soon as it hits Redbox.
*Warren Beatty, you should have handed the card to Faye Dunaway to read again. Looking puzzled again first would have been a bonus.
*What on earth Frances McDormand was talking about.
*Surprising a bunch of civilians who care so little about the Oscars that they went to do something else that evening was old the first time it was done.
*Biggest surprise to me, Eva Marie Saint calling Hitchcock "Fred." I didn't know that was his nickname; I didn't know he ever used one.
*Least welcome form of diversity: equal time for Best Song nominee presenters who can't sing. (Me to B: "That was epically microtonal.") At least the ones who could sing were so powerful they uplifted otherwise unmemorable songs.
*Best host jokes:
1, "We don't make movies like Call Me By Your Name for money. We make them to upset Mike Pence."
2, "Tonight's nominated documentaries show us that where there is darkness, there is also hope. Except at the White House. Hope quit on Wednesday."
Both political, among the few external political moments of the evening.
*Best presenter joke award goes to Mark Hamill for, "Don't say La La Land. Don't say La La Land."
*Most inspiring presenter, Emma Stone for "These four men and Greta Gerwig."
Thoughts:
*Isn't encouraging winners to speak out on social issues and offering them a jet ski if they're brief kind of a contradictory message? As well as a piece of tone-deaf conspicuous consumption?
*And it didn't work, the costume designer who wrapped it up in some 30 seconds being such an obvious winner that nobody else need try. My heart was with Roger Deakins, who began by saying he'd better think of something to say or he might wind up with a jet ski. I wouldn't want one either, nor would I have any place to put it. (Temporary possession of a third car - my mother's after her death, until the title cleared and we could sell it - stumped me until I rented a storage locker large enough to drive a car into.)
*And of course Best Costume Design went to the movie that was about costume design.
*Despite Kimmel promising they wouldn't do that, the orchestra did try to nudge over-wordy winners offstage with music, they just didn't try to drown the speakers out with it. I like the idea of multiple winners for one award all getting to speak with each successive one being briefer; I don't like the second guy (it's always men) thanking the same body of co-workers the first guy thanked.
*Best Picture went to what my ever-witty friend Lee calls Mutey and the Beast, a movie that touches on countering as many different forms of prejudice as they could fit in one story. It's also either SF or fantasy, I'm not sure which, the Oscar glory of which is another old prejudice overcome. I haven't seen it yet, but would like to as soon as it hits Redbox.
*Warren Beatty, you should have handed the card to Faye Dunaway to read again. Looking puzzled again first would have been a bonus.
*What on earth Frances McDormand was talking about.
*Surprising a bunch of civilians who care so little about the Oscars that they went to do something else that evening was old the first time it was done.
*Biggest surprise to me, Eva Marie Saint calling Hitchcock "Fred." I didn't know that was his nickname; I didn't know he ever used one.
*Least welcome form of diversity: equal time for Best Song nominee presenters who can't sing. (Me to B: "That was epically microtonal.") At least the ones who could sing were so powerful they uplifted otherwise unmemorable songs.
*Best host jokes:
1, "We don't make movies like Call Me By Your Name for money. We make them to upset Mike Pence."
2, "Tonight's nominated documentaries show us that where there is darkness, there is also hope. Except at the White House. Hope quit on Wednesday."
Both political, among the few external political moments of the evening.
*Best presenter joke award goes to Mark Hamill for, "Don't say La La Land. Don't say La La Land."
*Most inspiring presenter, Emma Stone for "These four men and Greta Gerwig."
Sunday, March 4, 2018
two concerts
Both in Santa Clara. Friday evening with B. to the Triton Museum for a small performance by the folk/early music band Brocelïande, whose concerts I keep missing due to conflicts. But this one was makeable, so we made it. The usual pleasant stuff, a couple of Alfonso's Cantigas and the like. Kris was showing off her new elf shoes: the toe is pointed, and curls up.
Saturday evening to the SCU campus for a concert at the Mission by the student orchestra. I was there for Dvorak's Eighth Symphony, a favorite played not as often as I'd like. The performance was frequently sketchy, with the flute giving up in the middle of one prominent and note-filled solo, but in only a couple of places did it lose the thread entirely. Beethoven's Violin Concerto (just the first movement, a limitation not revealed until the concert, but that's long enough) had a solidly adequate soloist in the form of the orchestra's usual concertmaster. And, new to me, Tan Dun's Symphonic Poem of 3 Notes turned out to be a hefty and intriguing piece.
Saturday evening to the SCU campus for a concert at the Mission by the student orchestra. I was there for Dvorak's Eighth Symphony, a favorite played not as often as I'd like. The performance was frequently sketchy, with the flute giving up in the middle of one prominent and note-filled solo, but in only a couple of places did it lose the thread entirely. Beethoven's Violin Concerto (just the first movement, a limitation not revealed until the concert, but that's long enough) had a solidly adequate soloist in the form of the orchestra's usual concertmaster. And, new to me, Tan Dun's Symphonic Poem of 3 Notes turned out to be a hefty and intriguing piece.
Saturday, March 3, 2018
cat show
"Vote for your favorite cat?" asked the young woman sitting next to the cashier at the entrance to the cat show, handing out spectator award ribbons and ballots. "Sure, I'll vote for a cat," I said. "Better choice than I usually get."
Leaving runner-up thoughts for the Burmilla, a breed I'd never heard of before (cross between Burmese and Chinchilla Persian), the most beautiful Devon Rex I'd ever seen, and Maine Coons in colors previously unseen by me in that breed, I gave it to one of the few Abyssinians on site this year. It's a breed I've always found particularly attractive, and this cat was particularly captivated by the sheaf of peacock feathers I always buy from the vendors at the front of the room when I enter. Eventually destined to be gnawed by Maia at home, they have a first assignment to pass by the eyes of all the cats at the show to see what reactions they'll arouse.
We sat (stood, actually) through one whole round of judging, noting that, though the judges perfunctorily waggle a tinsel stick in front of each cat, the judgment is based almost entirely on physical appearance and closeness to the ideal for the breed. They can do as they like, but I judge cats primarily on behavior: alertness, interactivity, playfulness. My vote in this ring would have gone to no. 10 (of ten) who spent the rest of the judging batting at the ribbon on the front of her cage.
The show is still in the same small building at the front of the county fairgrounds, but they've changed the parking, reopening the huge semi-paved lots on the other side of the main street that were mysteriously closed for many years. The last few years the only nearby parking had been the staff lot at the school down the street, an irregularly-shaped and too-small lot interspersed with buildings and lawns and whatnot, leaving some alarming and dubious choices for where to leave your car as it filled up. This is much better.
The cat show wasn't the only attraction. There were also people coming for a toy show, and something that the fairgrounds announcement board called NAGA. The info page on the fairgrounds website further refused to reveal what that is, and only further research revealed that it's the North American Grappling Association. Grappling? Under current circumstances, I thought it was going to be Nuke America Great Again or something.
Leaving runner-up thoughts for the Burmilla, a breed I'd never heard of before (cross between Burmese and Chinchilla Persian), the most beautiful Devon Rex I'd ever seen, and Maine Coons in colors previously unseen by me in that breed, I gave it to one of the few Abyssinians on site this year. It's a breed I've always found particularly attractive, and this cat was particularly captivated by the sheaf of peacock feathers I always buy from the vendors at the front of the room when I enter. Eventually destined to be gnawed by Maia at home, they have a first assignment to pass by the eyes of all the cats at the show to see what reactions they'll arouse.
We sat (stood, actually) through one whole round of judging, noting that, though the judges perfunctorily waggle a tinsel stick in front of each cat, the judgment is based almost entirely on physical appearance and closeness to the ideal for the breed. They can do as they like, but I judge cats primarily on behavior: alertness, interactivity, playfulness. My vote in this ring would have gone to no. 10 (of ten) who spent the rest of the judging batting at the ribbon on the front of her cage.
The show is still in the same small building at the front of the county fairgrounds, but they've changed the parking, reopening the huge semi-paved lots on the other side of the main street that were mysteriously closed for many years. The last few years the only nearby parking had been the staff lot at the school down the street, an irregularly-shaped and too-small lot interspersed with buildings and lawns and whatnot, leaving some alarming and dubious choices for where to leave your car as it filled up. This is much better.
The cat show wasn't the only attraction. There were also people coming for a toy show, and something that the fairgrounds announcement board called NAGA. The info page on the fairgrounds website further refused to reveal what that is, and only further research revealed that it's the North American Grappling Association. Grappling? Under current circumstances, I thought it was going to be Nuke America Great Again or something.
Thursday, March 1, 2018
English suites and others no. 26
In search of suites, our musical quest moves to the European continent, or perhaps the African one. Camille Saint-Saëns was a French composer, well-known for his Carnival of the Animals, Danse Macabre, and Organ Symphony, who spent a lot of his time in Algeria, then a French possession, ostensibly for his health.
While he didn't delve deeply into the local folk music as Gustav Holst would a few years later for Beni Mora, already heard in this series, Saint-Saëns did write an Algerian Suite inspired by local color of sorts. Curiously, while one movement of this suite is a pops favorite, the rest is unknown. I spent years tracking down a recording of this, and then years more tracking down a good one, but it's possible to hear it now.
And sure enough, while each movement is charming and tuneful, it's the finale which is so mindblowingly catchy that it drove the other three movements into oblivion. Hear them all now: Prelude (0.00), Moorish Rhapsody (4.00), Evening Reverie (10.54), and the French Military March (16.34).
While he didn't delve deeply into the local folk music as Gustav Holst would a few years later for Beni Mora, already heard in this series, Saint-Saëns did write an Algerian Suite inspired by local color of sorts. Curiously, while one movement of this suite is a pops favorite, the rest is unknown. I spent years tracking down a recording of this, and then years more tracking down a good one, but it's possible to hear it now.
And sure enough, while each movement is charming and tuneful, it's the finale which is so mindblowingly catchy that it drove the other three movements into oblivion. Hear them all now: Prelude (0.00), Moorish Rhapsody (4.00), Evening Reverie (10.54), and the French Military March (16.34).
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