Bach Doubled

So, in our last episode, I wondered about the ways in which we all take for granted that most major instrumental pieces are broken up into distinct (often self-sufficient) movements - distinct movements which, nevertheless, are generally expected to be performed in the context of the whole. In other words, the serious classical artist doesn't generally record or perform in recital just a single movement of a Beethoven sonata or Mozart symphony. I mentioned a few exceptions to that rule, but for better or for worse, the bias against excerpting movements is pretty strong. (It's always one of the chief complaints about the less high-minded classical radio stations that they dare to play unattached movements - I should know, having made this complaint many times!)

So, if pulling movements out on their own is frowned upon, I'd guess it would be even more controversial to re-order movements within a tidily assembled work or - horror! - to patch various movements into a new whole. But, quietly geeky radical that I am, I do find myself having such thoughts, three of which I'll share here - all of them, curiously, having to do with violin repertoire. (I can't really explain why that is, other than that I love the violin repertoire.) The first two "thought experiments" are pretty straightforward, and mainly noteworthy because I think they'd 1) work really well and 2) would probably never be seriously considered by anyone. The third one has spawned both the title of this post and something altogether more interesting.

Switcheroo #1: Back in September, I twittered about my idea that Brahms' amazingly wonderful third violin sonata might be just a tad more amazingly wonderful if the 2rd and 3rd of its four movements were swapped. Honestly, my reasoning is more intuitive than anything else (and, I know, who am I to put my intuition up against Brahms'?), but the song-like 2nd movement has such a radiantly tender, calm-before-storm quality that it feels right to me for it to precede the violently stormy finale. Meanwhile, the nervous hesitations of the scherzo seem to fit nicely after the weary ending of the passionate first movement. I'm perfectly content for others to disagree with me about this, and it's always hard to argue against the rightness of familiarity, but I think it would be a lovely idea to try this 1324 order out in performance - and yet, innocent and simple though the change would be, it feels like it would be some sort of violation. Here's a helpful playlist in which you can try out my version...if you dare!

Switcheroo #2: This is maybe even more radical, though no less innocently simple in concept, but the truth is I've never been completely in love with any of the Mozart violin concerti. Not that they need my love or anything, and sure, he was a young composer when he wrote them, etc., etc. I do think the 5th and final concerto is mostly ideal except it just doesn't have a great second movement. Or, let me put it more bluntly: it's second movement is not as perfect as the slow movement of the 3rd concerto. That slow movement is as divinely inspired as anything Mozart ever wrote. For whatever reason, the slow movement of Concerto #5 always sounds to me like a melody in search of...well, in search of that tune from the Concerto #3.

So, if I were somehow transformed into an internationally-acclaimed violin virtuoso asked to play a Mozart concerto for an upcoming gig, I would seriously want to propose my own little hybrid concerto. The key relationships work out just fine: A Major, D Major, A Major. (The "original" 2nd mvt of Concerto #5 is in E Major; up a 5th, down a 5th. Same difference.) You can try it out with this little playlist. It's not like I'm proposing first movement from Sibelius, second from Bruch, and third from Brahms. Just three Mozart movements which would complement each other beautifully. One of his piano sonatas (K. 533/494) is basically a hybrid as well, its third movement having been composed first and then added to two other movements at the request of a publisher. Maybe I'm not supposed to say this, but a lot of Mozart and Haydn movements are somewhat interchangeable - but we never get to play around with them. (Well, I HAVE since played around with them!) Pianists get to make their own multi-movement composite Scarlatti sets all the time (since his so-called sonatas are all single-movement works), but convention denies us that creative option with most other composers.

My last example is a bit different, as here it's more a problem of a work that has proportional issues. (By the way, if you think it's impudent of me to be challenging the final shape given to works by Brahms and Mozart, then imagine my trepidation at finding fault with Bach - and not just any Bach, but one of his revered works for unaccompanied violin.) Well, a few months ago, my violinist daughter was assigned her first-ever solo Bach - a deeply meaningful milestone to me. Curiously, her marvelously old-school Russian teacher decided to start with what to me is the most musically severe and uncompromising of these works, the Partita No. 1 in B Minor. It consists of eight binary-form dance movements, but it's really four dances, each of which is each then followed by a variation called a Double. Curious things, these Doubles. Each has the exact same formal and harmonic shape as the dance that precedes it, but the Doubles generally feature faster and more evenly flowing note values, meaning the dance character is sublimated a bit. All of the dances are in B minor (an austere key for Bach), and all are rather severe in shape and gesture - dances, yes, but not quite like listening to the Nutcracker Suite.

So my problem has always been that, as a listening experience, the eight movements back-to-back-to-back-etc. can be a bit too much. [...dodging lightning bolt...] What vexes me particularly is hearing each dance played with repeats and then hearing the Doubles traverse the same territory, with the same repeats. In fact, the first time I saw the score, I assumed the Doubles were intended as alternate ways to play the repeats, and I still think this could be an interesting approach. But, it seems the most common approach is to be a good soldier and play everything as written. If the violinist is good enough, the experience can be richly rewarding, as this is some of the most profound and centering music ever written...but still. I can't help but help wonder if Bach would ever have imagined hearing this music presented in recital in such a way. Again, if I could suddenly be a great violinist, I'd be tempted to perform the work either with no repeats or, better yet, with the Doubles acting as the repeats. I have heard of pianists interspersing works by Schoenberg amongst the movements of Bach sets as a way of opening ears to the cross-century connection*; I wish artists would be as open to re-imagining ways of presenting a single composer's works.

But my favorite discovery out all of this came from thinking of another way of dealing with those Doubles. It occurred to me that they could perhaps be played simultaneously with their dances as duets. A quick experiment with the opening Allemanda was somewhat disappointing as there was too much literal doubling between the two parts. However, the Courante and its Double proved to be a revelation. I imagine violinists must have tried this out on occasion - maybe with teacher and student in lessons - but my not-extensive Googling hasn't turned anything up in the way of recordings. So, I went to work with a couple of the virtual violinists residing in my computer and, voilà, a strikingly successful duet.** It's almost as if Bach intended these movements to be "mashed up," as they mostly move in contrary motion to each other, the slashing sixteenth notes of the Double parrying the more angular eighth-notes of the original Courante. My favorite piece of music in the whole world is probably Bach's Double Violin Concerto, known far and wide as "The Bach Double," but it's rather satisfying to have stumbled on this new "Bach Double" (a much bigger success than this bizarre "Bach Double" I created a while back.)

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A couple of final points: I'm rather proud of the way the video above traces the two separate scores. In an ideal world, I'd have taken the time to format both movements nicely into duet form, but it's kind of fun trying to follow both scores at once. [Here's another Bach animation of mine that lets you do something similar.] It's a reminder that counterpoint is always a kind of "mash-up." One of the joys of counterpoint is the experience of experiencing multiple distinct strands simultaneously; mash-ups can often be engaging for the same reason. In these multi-tasking times, perhaps Bach's music is more timely than ever.

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* Note that Andrew Rangell, the pianist who interspersed Bach with Schoenberg for a conference recital, is quoted as saying he'd never do that in a "real" concert. What a crazy world we live in!

** As it happens, another work my daughter is studying now is a Wieniawski Etude-Caprice, which comes with its own accompanying part for a second violinist. So, I guess I have had violin duets on the brain...

P.S. I'll be posting duet versions of the Sarabande and Bourree in the near future; they don't work as well as the Courantes, but they are worth hearing.

UPDATE: A Twitter colleague, the very knowledgeable JoseSPiano, mentioned hearing violinist Daniel Heifetz perform the Partita No. 2 in D Minor WITHOUT the concluding Chaconne. The 15-minute Chaconne is perhaps Bach's most monumental achievement, but it dwarfs the four much briefer dance movements that precede it. I've no doubt that the Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue make a wonderful set on their own, and this practice would allow them to be heard differently, much like what I said about movements by Schubert and Ives in my last post.

UPDATE #2: I mentioned above that I would be posting "duet" recordings of other "dances plus doubles" from Bach's Partita in B minor, but the others just sound too lousy with my synthesized violins. (The Courante + Double works better because the music is so straight-ahead in character; all of the other movements require more thoughtfully conceived breaking of chords, agogic accents, etc.)

Should there be a "Free the Movements" Movement?

Among the many odd conventions classical musicians take for granted is the organization of large works into individual movements. The word movement itself is an odd one if you think about it, and the practice of withholding applause between movements always seems to come up as something that mystifies the uninitiated. There is a sort of an analogy to the way in which plays are divided into acts and novels into chapters, but most plays and novels have a more explicit narrative connection that makes these subsections more obviously interdependent than is generally the case with musical movements. Sure, a composer can connect various movements by means of key, motif, transitions, attacas, etc., but such connections tend to be notable as exceptions to the rule, and they still don't mean the movements in question can't stand alone. 

But, at least within the oh-so-serious classical music culture that has developed in the last hundred years, there's a pretty strong bias against presenting single movements as freestanding. Of course, there are plenty of special contexts (group recitals, examinations, auditions, competitions, Pops concerts, celebratory occasions, elevators, etc.) in which exceptions are made, but they kind of prove the rule. How often does a major orchestra or a Carnegie Hall recitalist feature a disconnected movement in a regular program? (Individual movements from suites or other more loosely connected sets of pieces don't count.) There may be plenty of good reasons for this self-consciously organic way of thinking, but it's certainly not that individual sonata/concerto/symphony movements can't stand on their own.

I thought of this while attending a piano student's senior recital on Sunday afternoon. This was a non-required recital, which meant there was considerably more programming freedom than the typical degree recital would allow. Included were three substantial movements from larger works, and I was surprised at how satisfying it was to hear them this way. Maybe I was surprised because I hear disconnected movements all the time in weekly performance classes, general student recitals, and the like - and such contexts can induce a kind of listening whiplash that accentuates the fragmenting. In this case, each movement was given a chance to make its own complete statement, partly because each fit nicely into a well-planned program, with the Intermission helping to frame the events.

I have to admit I was skeptical about the decision to end the first half of the recital with the "slow" 2nd movement of Schubert's E-flat Piano Trio, but this was the movement that the student and her chamber group had ready to play. I should mention that this trio is one of my all-time favorite pieces; I love the 1st and 4th movements, and I especially love the way the main theme of this 2nd movement returns in the 4th. Thus, I already had a bit of bias against playing just a single movement. Furthermore, "slow" movements are so often defined by the way in which they provide contrast to surrounding fast movements. Taking this out of context and using it to end a recital half (ending with something slow?) seemed like a compromise of necessity more than anything.

So, of course, it turned out that I loved it! It happens to be a very substantial "slow" movement, with a dramatic climax, and although I knew that, I'm not sure I'd ever thought about how "feature-length" it can feel. In the full trio, the weary, even devastating ending of the 2nd movement is quickly followed by a light-hearted country dance scherzo and then a long-ish finale - here, we got to walk quietly out into the Intermission with that heartrending cello theme still floating in the air. Let's face it, Schubert's "heavenly length" has its advantages and disadvantages, but I can genuinely say I found new things to love about this movement hearing it this way, even though I'd just coached the performers in it a few days before!

After intermission, our pianist came back out to play another "slow movement," the 3rd movement ("The Alcotts") of Charles Ives legendary "Concord" Sonata. This is actually the second time I've had a student learn this "work"; it's not easy, by any means, but it's not nearly as ferocious a challenge as the other three movements, especially movements 1 and 2. In fact, I'm not sure I'll ever be up to the task of learning the entire sonata myself, though I like to dream, but "The Alcotts" is such special music and so unique that it would be a great shame to fence it off from pianists not ready to tackle "Emerson" and "Hawthorne." So, I already knew this piece can stand on its own; but hearing in on a late Autumn New England afternoon, with a picture-window view of woods and pond (we have a really lovely recital hall!) behind the pianist was...well, this is why we bother with music in the first place.It worked deeply and beautifully. And, yes, as with the Schubert, there are motives (the Beethoven 5th theme, especially) and ideas that connect "The Alcotts" to its sibling movements, but whereas one usually hears it as a kind of relief after the wildness of "Hawthorne," one could appreciate how wide-ranging, full-hearted, and complete these few pages are. Here's Ives himself playing:

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Now I'm not saying that every movement of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, etc. needs to be set free in this way, but I think there's a lesson here about the value of hearing the familiar in a new context. There's also the reminder that musical narratives are, generally speaking, much more flexible than theatrical/literary narratives. Coincidentally, both the Schubert and Ives movements have found lives in some unusual pop culture contexts. Here's a Bruce Hornsby song that begins with a nod to the Ives and I only just encountered this highly unexpected use of the Schubert. Well then. (Oh, I guess the Schubert also made its way into Barry Lyndon.)

There are some notable examples of single movements which have taken on lives of their own. There's the whole elegy subcategory represented by Barber's Adagio (originally a movement from his String Quartet - note that the Adagio  partly was freed by the fact that the composer only orchestrated this movement, giving it a sort of "blessing"), Elgar's Nimrod, and Mahler's Adagietto. There's a scherzo by Litolff which is virtually all the poor composer is known for, although the practice of extracting it from its Concerto Symphonique No. 4 hearkens back to a day when the playing of excerpted movements was more common.

Mozart's Rondo alla turca and the 1st movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata are certainly much better-known than their siblings, but I doubt one would run across them alone on any sort of standard recital. The finale of Beethoven's 9th gets out on its own every now and then as well, and then there's that strange pair of Schubert movements that never got "finished" - of course, they are finished, as evidenced by the fact that they're played all the time, but would anyone have ever thought to perform them that way if they hadn't been orphaned?

My student's recital concluded with the grand first movement of Schumann's Piano Concerto. Here we have a work originally conceived as a single-movement Fantasy, so the fact that one would almost never hear it alone on a standard orchestra program isn't because Schumann wouldn't have imagined it that way - it's because his later decision to add two movements effectively put a "reverse blessing" on the practice. Honestly, as much as I adore this entire concerto, I've never felt the 2nd movement quite measured up, and the finale, while exhilarating, is also not quite as perfect as the 1st. So, another big success on what turned out to be a thoroughly effective and "complete" program. Perhaps some day we'll live in a world where movements can move freely about the earth, less constrained by the curatorial mindset that wants to insist always on complete sets. (Think of the creative programming potential!) Fragments are nice, too.

UPDATE: Just remembered (via overhearing a student conversation) Brahms' fabulous Scherzo from the quirky collaborative F-A-E Sonata. Because Brahms didn't write the other movements of that larger work, performers have generally felt free to play the Brahms as a freestanding piece - something that they would probably never do with a single movement from a Brahms sonata/trio/quartet.

UPDATE 2: See also this next post for more adventures in re-programming movements.

Così Reflections

I'm back from my whirlwind trip to NYC where I witnessed the opening night of "Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required," which I'll refer to as #nycosi from here on. It's quite appropriate that #nycosi has been so closely tied in with Twitter because, like Twitter itself, it's difficult to explain how an event like this works to someone who's not there. The uniqueness of Twitter is in how multiple conversational threads can be followed quite naturally, creating a web of widely varied but interrelated ideas and relationships; I don't think it's possible to grasp it without participating. Likewise, #nycosi developed in part out of musical/personal relationships that were formed on Twitter and Twitter also enables a communal running commentary as the talking, rehearsing, and performing is in progress; so there's a multi-layered interconnectedness that energizes the whole experience.

Of course, Twitter is just a networking interface; it can't perform an opera, so there's much more to #nycosi than just a bunch of typed words. In brief, the event is structured around discussing, rehearsing and performing Mozart's comic opera Così fan tutte over four evenings (Aug 17/18/20/22), with a rotating cast of highly professional singers singing the roles and an even more fluidly shifting group of highly skilled instrumentalists becoming the unrehearsed orchestra for each night. At the center of it all is conductor/coach Jennifer Peterson, who somehow managed to assemble all this talent from both her professional connections (coaches get to know a lot of singers) and her Twitter web. Thus, the sense of community is an integral aspect of the #nycosi experience; there's a palpable sense of how much all of these musicians enjoy collaborating in such an open and collegial environment. Although not everyone knows each other, there are probably rarely more than two degrees of separation among the participants. For me, it was also a very satisfying "tweet-up," as I met quite a few people I've only known in the virtual world before now. (Whew, they're not axe-murderers - or, at least, they're all very nice.)

As far as I could tell, most (all?) of the talent was participating on a volunteer basis, which could be seen as good or bad. It's certainly not a model for how to make money in the music world, but it's just as certainly evidence of how much musicians love to make music together, especially when the environment is supportive and empowering for all involved.* At one point, after there had been a good bit of back-and-forth among singers, orchestra members, and conductor about a tempo question, co-host Cori Ellison noted that one doesn't see that kind of open, democratic debate in a typical professional situation - and for good reason, by the way, but #nycosi is a reminder that the professional context isn't the only way to experience great music, even for professionals. There's a paradox in that we're trained to be focused on putting together finely polished performances for paying audiences, and that can be very satisfying, but the act of putting music together less formally and for its own sake can also be very satisfying. One of the things that #nycosi does is allow an audience to see that side of musicians.

Although it had turned out that my admittedly meager cello skills weren't required, I did get to take on the curious role of official twhistorian for the first night, which meant - well, I didn't really know what it meant, but I had a great seat just off to the left of where the singers stood. I was conveniently shielded from most of the audience by an enormous column (everything takes place in the comfy and very red lobby of the Gershwin Hotel) which made it not feel too strange to sit with laptop at the ready, sending out tweets whenever it seemed appropriate.

All the tweets include the #nycosi tag, which means that anyone interested in the event can follow along and add to the #nycosi stream as well, whether seated in the hotel or across the country. (You can read my archived "live-tweets" here or follow the still-ongoing live stream here.) As the evening progressed, there were contributions from a wide variety of Twitterers, including several members of the orchestra and even one of the hosts. Quite a few (no real idea how many) also seemed to be following from afar; it's fascinating to wonder what they were experiencing, since it wasn't the actual music. I think, as much as anything, it was participating in the sense of occasion. At any rate, I ended up churning out about 80-90 tweets that night, many of the "play-by-play" variety, some including live photos. 

The singing really was fabulous - the singers had rehearsed with Jennifer ahead of time and came knowing their parts quite well, although all held scores in hand. It was fun to watch them interacting, moving fluidly in and out of character, listening attentively and appreciatively (with scores still in hand) while others sang, etc. The orchestra mostly held together fine, although there were inevitably times when barlines didn't quite line up, understandable given the lack of rehearsal for them. Still, as much as I love playing piano reductions, you can't beat the thrill of supporting singers with a live, full orchestra (especially with Mozart's sublime orchestrations - listen to that viola line in the video below!) - when you consider how expensive it would normally be to assemble a band as talented as this (or even one much less talented), it was a remarkable luxury to have them there at all, and there were flashes of brilliant playing.

This idea of experiencing music in fragments (due to stopping, restarting, variable quality of execution, etc.) is fascinating. Sure, Mozart may have written this music to flow along continuously, but having the opportunity to stop and reflect can actually be energizing for an audience, especially since rehearing the same passage a few times can often make it all the more engaging. After all, I often find myself rewinding my iPod 15 or 30 seconds in order to hear something again. Musical analysis inevitably puts high value on experiencing music "in whole," but if we're honest, sometimes we just really look forward to "that part," which might even just be a little turn of phrase. I think there are ways in which an evening like this plays off of that less "big-picture" way of listening.

On the other hand, as much as #nycosi is an inviting way to present music, especially due to breaking down some of the formal barriers audiences often encounter, there is certainly an insider-y quality in an event like this. One of the hosts, director Ned Canty, tweeted at one point Wednesday night:

Singers doing a splendid job of telling this story with no props costumes or lights and a minimum of movement. #nycosi #losingjobsecurity

Now Canty has directed the opera six times and knows it intimately, so it stands to reason that he could easily follow the drama without all those extras, but the truth is that someone new to opera could hardly be expected to make much sense of things. In fact, at one point, after a fast-paced recitative scene had been run, Jennifer turned to the audience and asked optimistically, "you could all follow what was going on there, right?" She seemed a little surprised to see many heads shaking left to right, but this is the way music so often goes for us musicians. Once you're on the inside and know the works intimately, it's hard to imagine how they wouldn't make sense to anyone. 

Still, audiences members could hardly complain since ticket prices were rock-bottom low and they were all very close to the action, hearing glorious music being lovingly produced. No one would suggest that this is a model for how opera should generally be presented or how performers should try to make a living, but there's a lot to be said for seeing musicians in their element, and I suspect that these evenings will provide a real motivational boost to all the participants - it never hurts to be reminded why we love doing what we do, and Jennifer's operamission has accomplished that mission beautifully.

Again, it's really a "you have to be there" kind of thing, but here's one richly rewarding excerpt (shot with my blurry camera from my prime twhistorian location) from the run-thru that ended the first evening. This is the tender farewell quintet as Ferrando and Guglielmo pretend to be heading off to war, to the distress of their girlfriends, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, and to the amused delight of Don Alfonso, who's pulling all the strings.  

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from left to right:

DENNIS BLACKWELL - Don Alfonso
BRIAN ANDERSON - Ferrando
JAMES BOBICK - Guglielmo
JENNIFER BERKEBILE - Dorabella
CAROLINE WORRA - Fiordiligi

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* I mentioned to Jennifer as she was breaking down the set-up for the evening, moving her own harpsichord, etc, that it was notable that she'd found volunteers with the very specialized skills required to play all of the instrumental parts, but she hadn't bothered to find a volunteer stage manager - not only was it telling that she didn't mind doing the dirty work, but I suspect she knew that she was offering her musical volunteers a real privilege to be involved, even if they were giving back very generously. Not that stage-managing isn't a noble pursuit, but I think she figured she could handle that (and the conducting, and the continuo playing, and the coaching, and the assembling of talent), so why burden someone else?

Così Hero

In my last post, I mentioned that the blogosphere seems less energized than it was two to three years ago. As Elaine (a terrific blogger who hasn't slowed down) commented, some of the energy that once went into blogs has been rerouted onto Twitter and Facebook. The fact is, Twitter and Facebook are better when it comes to sharing links and keeping multi-threaded conversations going, while blogs are obviously better for more substantive content; but as blogs are used less and less for day-to-day contact and link-sharing, it stands to reason that the substantive content might get less attention.

Still, there are uniquely substantive experiences that can arise out of the Twitterverse (including operaplot, of course), and I'm particularly excited about one that will take place in the non-virtual world next week. That's right, real people, many of whom I've known exclusively through Twitter up to now, will be gathering in the Big Apple for a unique, multi-night, kind of hard-to-describe exploration/ performance of Mozart's Così fan tutte. The brainchild of NYC pianist/conductor/coach Jennifer Peterson, the event will feature professional singers and a true pick-up orchestra, with players picked up from far and wide at least in part via Peterson's Twitter connections. The two Acts of the opera will be split across four nights, with various singers taking on the roles each night and the orchestra showing up unrehearsed.

Naturally, this unrehearsed, "jam session" approach appeals to my Piano Hero instincts. This is not just because I'm lazy (although let's not completely discount that factor). No, I really like the way this kind of event embraces the joy of putting music together spontaneously. Of course, it's not completely spontaneous - Mozart did write down a lot of specific notes to be played, the singers will likely know their parts well, the musicians will be skilled. And, of course, there's nothing wrong with rehearsing a performance extensively and preparing it to be as good as possible, but I think we too often fool ourselves into thinking that great music can only be properly experienced in the idealized context of a fully prepared performance. This has a lot to do with the way we're trained and judged (we call our exams "juries!") and the way that critics tend to evaluate recitals and concerts.

But, oh yeah, sometimes the most exciting musical experiences occur in the fragmentary rehearsal stage. I know this because it's my experience all the time. Sometimes hearing just a fragment of a piece on the radio can be as moving and important as hearing it in full in a concert. Etc. So I'm really looking forward to seeing and hearing a bunch of talented musicians come together to tackle a great opera in a refreshingly informal, but sure-to-be deeply committed fashion.

I was going to bring my poor cello (poor because it only gets out of its case a few times a year) down to join in the fun, but it looks as if there are going to be plenty of real cellists on hand (though violinists are still needed!), so I think I'm just going to watch. This will also relieve me of the spontaneously improvisational experience of dragging a cello through the streets of New York. I'll only be able to get away for the first night, which will cover the Overture and the first half of Act I, but that's part of the fragmentary fun. The details are as follows:

operamission presents
Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required

Mozart's Perfect Italian Comedy, Presented in Four Parts

• Full orchestra, unrehearsed, assembled on the spot

• A sublime cast

• Four hosts - dramaturg Cori Ellison, conductor Jennifer Peterson, stage director Ned Canty, and Italian language master Marco Nisticò

• Hosts will examine Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart & Lorenzo da Ponte's handiwork

• Lab, jam session, cabaret...? ...to be determined by audience interaction

Presented by operamission

and Neke Carson at New York's Gershwin Hotel

ACT I, PART 1 - Tuesday, August 17, 7:00 PM

ACT I, PART 2 - Wednesday, August 18, 7:00 PM

ACT II, PART 1 - Friday, August 20, 7:00 PM

ACT II, PART 2 - Sunday, August 22, 4:00 PM

$10 general admission ($5 per session if attending more than one)

CONTACT - operamission@gmail.com, +1 917 520 3163

http://twitter.com/operamission

http://operamission.org/

I'm back!

Perhaps faithful readers of this blog, if such there be, might wonder if my last post heading ("Paranormal Activity") was a subtle signal that I'd been abducted by aliens - that seems as good a reason as any for why I just stopped blogging for a couple of months, but I've never intended to quit blogging. (I won't confirm or deny whether or not I was actually abducted, although there is a pretty cool mashup culture emerging in the blogosphere of Sector 12 on Planet 23 in the...whoops, I've said enough.) Aside from the general resistance of inertia, I've also been struggling with how best to articulate the many thoughts I've had about classical music culture since some exchanges with Greg Sandow back in late May.

So, I've set myself a couple of goals, aside from just resuming normal blogging activity. I'm hoping to start spinning out a series of ideas about "classical music culture," its strengths, weaknesses, etc. I'm also hoping, at long last, to create something more like a website to house the many multimedia creations that have sprung up as part of my blogging. As I've mentioned many times before, a problem with the blog format is that it tends to focus all the attention on recent posts, whereas I think many blogs out there ought to be seen not just as ongoing journals but as archives of interesting material that deserves to be revisited.

I'm not sure what the future of blogs is anyway, given that many of my favorites have virtually ceased activity. The guys at the wonderful Dial M for Musicology have literally stopped blogging; the amazing Soho the Dog (Matthew Guerrieri) has also been virtually silent while working on a book project, and one never is sure when the great Jeremy Denk will materialize in blog form again. Those were probably my three favorite blogs back in the day, but it may be that the blogosphere doesn't sustain its lifeforms as well as was once thought - which is why I'm determined to continue blogging, but in a way that also becomes something like a big, ongoing, easily searchable book. We'll see.

However, today I've come not to promote my own multimedia creation, but to cite some outstanding work by some students from one of my summer classes. The class is called "Analytical Techniques" and it serves as a 3rd year theory class in our 3-summer Masters program for public school music teachers. Coming back to theory can be rather intimidating for some of these students, many of whom are teaching general music at the elementary level, where the subject of Augmented Sixth chords doesn't come up all that often. Thus, teaching the class has been a good exercise for me in thinking about the practical side of theory, and especially in thinking about how developing good listening/analytical skills can make our students better at communicating to their students about how music works, why it's worth paying attention to, etc.

The first project the students do is a fairly standard, comprehensive analytical graph of a long-form piece (hint: Excel spreadsheets are wonderful for creating such graphs), but the second project is designed to focus both on presentation skills (talking intelligibly and winsomely about theory stuff) and creative approaches to analysis. Each of the projects includes some sort of "creative" component that links ideas about how the music is composed with extra-musical accessories (visual, narrative, movement-based, etc.). My ideal is always that the "extra-musical" component serve as a catalyst for deeper listening - in other words, rather than have the music become background to something new that becomes an end in itself, the best project would serve to get us listening more attentively.

The video below is one of the best such projects I've seen. These students had the idea of presenting Charles Ives' famous "America" Variations as a B&W, silent-film style story about a conductor trying to get his charges to behave. Right off the bat, that concept jibes nicely with the idea of Ives tackling this sober and dignified tune with his peculiar brand of adolescent (literally, since he was 17) musical wise-cracking. Because the video has a low-budget vibe as well (using stills in stop-motion, etc.), it does a great job of getting us to think about what's going on in the music, while also being consistently entertaining. After watching it, I believe any student could easily have developed a better sense of how the music is structured and how it develops, which is really the goal.

I should add that the students also presented a more detailed analysis as part of their presentation, but as I've already remarked on Twitter, I like that this video wears that analysis lightly. We're reminded that music is fun, entertaining, diverting, etc. and though there may be all sorts of sophisticated reasons that Ives was successful in putting this music together, those details are not ends in themselves. One of the convictions I have about classical music culture as it now exists is that we tend to take ourselves much too seriously. There are all sorts of reasons for why this might be the case, and some of them are very good reasons. But, in a nutshell, it's important that the academic culture that's built up around music not distance us too much from why music exists in the first place. I think this video sums that up much better than all the words I've just multiplied: