Review of LA PHIL Live in HD; Two Powerful Silences

The LA Philharmonic jumped into the Live in HD pool this afternoon with its first ever live in HD broadcast, and the first of three HD broadcasts this season.

The program was attractive; "Slonimsky's Earbox" by John Adams, the Bernstein first symphony and Beethoven's seventh symphony.

There were two powerful silences in the experience: first there was no sound from the satellite in my theater until half-way through the Adams. One needed Beethoven's ear-trumpet to hear Slonimsky's Earbox.

In the 21st century we turn quickly on failures of this sort. People were pissed. They stormed out looking for refunds. The live signal we were channeling from an orbiting satellite, in order to hear a symphony playing on the west coast, was silent. We failed to see the humor. We are too spoiled.

The other silence was devastating. At the end of a gripping performance of the Bernstein first symphony, that was the musical highlight of the event, conductor Gustavo Dudamel froze and let silence wash over us. He must have stayed motionless for 12 seconds or more...and finally applause.

Mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor sang from within the orchestra in the third movement. She sang without the hard edges and intense vibrato that one often hears in this movement. It was gorgeous.

Here was Bernstein presented to the public in movie theaters as a composer of serious music. It was strangely affecting; strangely funny.

Dudamel described Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 as being a symphony "of happiness." It is "like dancing and dancing and dancing and enjoying," he said. The performance of the first three movements was ok. Dudamel chose not to take the repeat in the first movement. Why would one choose less happiness than Beethoven?

But the fourth movement was full of fire and jumped with massive energy into the movie theater.

This medium has great potential for symphonic music. The production will need to be improved. The tendency to cut from one angle to another reached a caffeinated frenzy during the Beethoven. We don't need so many close-ups of the musicians. We don't always need to pan during wide shots. Let us watch Dudamel for more than a few seconds at a time. We never felt a part of the audience in LA. Give us more shots from the audience.

Here is the thing: there is nothing boring about watching an orchestra. Choose an angle and let us watch them for a while. Let us decide where to cast our eyes once and a while.

I liked Vanessa Williams. I guess sometimes the snow does come down in June.

With some tweaks and some rethinking this series will work.

Rance's Revenge; Review of the Met Live in HD Fanciulla

"La Fanciulla del West," broadcast as part of the Met Live in HD Series, seemed at home in the movie theater. The opera has always carried a kind of silver screen sensibility even though it debuted one hundred years ago, well ahead of the silver screen.

This production had a hot second act. Deborah Voigt as Minnie was able to open a can of vocal kickass as she interacted with both Marcello Giordani as Johnson and Lucio Gallo as Rance. Conductor Nicola Luisotti made the music rhythmically visceral and drove the action forward.

But the staging of the first act seemed tired in this 1992 Giancarlo del Monaco production. It was also hard to hear the ensemble--even with the magic of HD transmission.

Peter Sellars was interviewed during an intermission in advance of Nixon in China, but we needed his help with the Act One set. I could imagine Sellars setting Act One set in Cheers: "Hello Norm!....I mean Nick!"

The highlight of the first act was Gallo. He shaded Rance with seasoning from Scarpia. This boost of evil broadened the impact of the Sheriff, who was left alone on stage after act three with a pistol that he held menacingly. Yeah, this opera ended without bloodshed--but after a hundred years perhaps Rance is getting his revenge as we speak.

Gallo already had his revenge. "Minnie," he sang in Act One, "dalla mia casa son partito” (Nothing has ever given me pleasure). Translated from baritone-speak this passage becomes Bono singing, "I Still haven’t found what I’m Looking for."

Gallo made Rance believable.

The supporting cast also had some stand-outs: Ginger Costa-Jackson was fabulous as Wowkle. The ever present Dwayne Croft was memorable as Sonora, particularly in act three where his solid singing was critical in making the transformation of the community seem plausible.

This production was hosted by Sondra Radvanovsky. She was likable. The interviews were wide-ranging and creative. Coverage of these transmissions allowed us access into the process that was both educational and entertaining.

Union Scale in 1905; How much for a Private Dance? How much for a Whist Party?

I own a copy of the union scale guidelines for 1905. It belonged to a tuba player named Thomas Farrell who lived on 346 George Street in New Haven; between York and High Street. He signed the back cover in pencil.

More technically it is the constitution and by-laws of the 1905 The American Federation of Musicians. The Federation was not yet ten years old.

The local association was called "The New Haven Musical Protective Association." This New Haven branch of the AFM was formed on September 22, 1901 and met "every fourth Sunday of every month in room 24, Insurance building."

After 56 pages of the constitution and by-laws we get the good stuff: the "Schedule of Prices," and lists of the member musicians and their residences. The booklet ends with a systematic listing of numbered fire alarm telegraph boxes in New Haven. It was never boring to be a hustler.

The first page in the "Schedule of Prices" shows several kinds of events that have changed over the last hundred years.

There is a great deal of language that defines what it means to have a "private dance." The formal language is lovely: "if the money for said Dance be raised by subscription..." The meaning of what a private dance is all about has clearly changed.

A "German" was the old term for the style of waltz that we refer to now as Viennese.

"Whist Parties," would have been the serious card games, requiring an "analytical mind" like the one that is referred to in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", by Edgar Allan Poe. As the description indicates, no music would have happened during the card game itself--but afterward let the dancing begin!

These prices would make it tough for us to eat from the dollar menu. But if one keeps in mind the scale of the day the prices become quite attractive. Thomas Farrell could have bought a new tuba from the Sears catalog for $26.15 if he didn't mind the "highly polished brass" finish.

That means that at any given time George Farrell was just one "Ball," three "Germans," and two "Whist Parties" away from buying a new tuba.

A Meditation on January by Tchaikovsky

The Russian magazine "Nouvellist" commissioned Tchaikovsky to write twelve short piano pieces inspired by the each of the twelve months. The corresponding music appeared in each publication in 1876. Collected in publication later the work became "The Seasons," Op. 37a.



It is a month of surprises and unexpected deflections in the Tchaikovsky setting, and even the innocent opening phrase leans obliquely into A major. Developmental continuation [0:27] is accelerated [0:35] using tasty half-diminished sevenths in a strange sequence from A-flat to C major and culminates [0:43] in a quickly articulated sequence of flat-ninth chords. We just barely make the return [0:50].

"It is now January," wrote English writer Nicholas Breton (1545-1626), "& Time beginnes to turne on the wheele of his Reuolution." His entry, from "The Twelve Moneths," becomes filled with thoughts of sleep and of food:

"The Hedgehogge," writes Breton, "rowles up himselfe like a football. [...] Downe beds and quilted cappes are now in the pride of their seruice."

"The Hare after a course makes his hearse in a pye: the shoulder of a hog is a shooing horne to good drink."

Tchaikovsky seems to think in the dualities of January in the sexy central section beginning at [1:13]. We hear C major and E minor juxtaposed in radically different figurations. We are missing the resolution of the augmented sixth chord that would provide logical connection between the two. Ideas are repeated in disbelief.

This music swirls like an echo of the first section's deflection and ends in the mists of Schumann. Restatement [2:09] sounds as cold as it did before, though this time we find the dominant of E minor [2:29] which becomes V/V for our return [2:53].

"To conclude," writes Breton, "I hold it a time of little comfort, the rich mans charge and the poore mans misery. Farewell."