WMV Music Web Log

Aftermath of Libby Larsen event at the Cosmos Club:

I had a dream last night: I was in a laboratory, much like the ones I used to work in, and I suspected that there were traces of radiation left on some of the apparatus. I carefully picked up the Geiger counter and checked; sure enough, everything was "screaming hot". That's how I feel about Libby Larsen's visit - she left the place "screaming hot". She has a high intensity mind that kindles everyone in her vicinity. We suddenly feel like normal life is too closed in, our cultural clothes too tight, the air too stuffy, and the world a far bigger place, there are things to do, let's get going.

Yes, it was fun to play her music with her there - one had the feeling that nothing could possibly go wrong, because she has it all covered. Which made it possible to relax and have a ball, playing better than ever. Karyn Friedman and her husband Gary Poster and I walked with Libby up to Raku before the concert (order the Wasabi Shumai! It's great with green tea), and heard about the book she is writing, her work as a Kluge fellow at the Library of Congress, and the oratorio she is writing on commission from MIT. What a privilege!

Marilyn Banner's art show at the Costa Rican Embassy:

So the very next day, we put up Marilyn's show at the Costa Rican Embassy. Alice Sims came down with us to lend her expert eye. It was fun, the Embassy folks were extremely nice, and the show looks spectacular. All the work was inspired by her experience of the rainforest at Carara. I was with her in Costa Rica - I love to go places with her: she sees things differently, and often shares that with me. In Carara, though the place was spectacularly beautiful, I really couldn't tell what she was seeing. She kept exclaiming about the tree trunks, but I was much more interested in the birds and animals - especially the sounds (duh). So it was not until she had actually created much of the work that I could get a sense of what it was she had seen. She started by doing large charcoal drawings of the invaginated, folded Guanacaste tree trunks, which looked like a lot of verticality with light and dark stripes. Then she started tearing up banana mash paper (which she brought back from Monteverde) and collaging it, again with the vertical dark and light stripes. It wasn't until she had done several of these that I could tell what they were about. The forest has always been a maternal place for Marilyn, since I have known her, and the rainforest at Carara must have felt particularly that way. The folds of the trunk of the Guanacaste tree, in the embrace of which a person could easily stand, and around which there were all kinds of birds and animals, were a particularly powerful expression of this.

From there, the work developed into evocations of parrots, butterflies, tiny little jewel-like insects, and a dizzying juxtaposition of views of tree tops from the canopy-walk bridges with close-ups of dense coleus leaves. She called one "Fabric of Nature", which we used on one of our more successful postcards simply by scanning a piece of it directly. She had gone to Costa Rica with the idea that if one could visit the "Garden of Eden", that would be a likely place to look for it, and I guess she found what she was looking for. Where do we go next, Mar? Speaking of sounds in Costa Rica, I was floored by a sound I had never heard before, which turned out to be a troop of howler monkeys at Lake Arenal. In my imagination it was a bunch of new age monks, chanting wierdly in the forest. The startling quality of the experience reminded me of the first time I heard coyotes in New Mexico.

A whole program of Libby Larsen's music! That would have struck me as a great idea last year, but without a clue how to produce it. Luckily, we have the privilege to do just that at the Cosmos Club next week, thanks to Libby Larsen, with Libby herself introducing each piece. Unfortunately, it is not open to the public, just members and their guests. If you are not a member (who are these people? and how do I get them on my mailing list?), you can hear the various pieces on our other programs, just not all together like this, unless I find another excuse to do it. Rhonda Buckley and I worked pretty hard on "Holy Roller" yesterday, and we are getting comfortable with it, a tall order, since this work is fiendishly difficult for both of us. Our recording of it is pretty good ("Rhonda Buckley, Live at Washington Musica Viva" on the WMV label, available from WMV, Levine School, or the Sitar Center for the Arts), but a recording is like a stepping stone - by studying our own recording we can figure out how to get to a new level. And we have already performed Holy Roller twice, so we kind of know what to expect in the heat of battle. I am optimistic!

It was a wonderful experience to rehearse with David Teie and Mahoko Eguchi for the March 2 concert - we programmed simply the best of the old trio masterpieces, the best Mozart Trio (if you don't include the Kegelstatt, which is arguably as good as the E major), Schubert's great Bb Trio (OK, the Eb is probably just as good, but we'll save it for another time), and Brahms' most concentrated romantic expression, his product of youth, revised lovingly and without cynicism in his maturity, the B major Trio op. 8. We all know these pieces so well, rehearsing was like sitting down to a good supper. We played, we sighed, and we left feeling good. Life should be like that for musicians!
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Maybe it's time to do some hard thinking about what it is we do and how it might fit into the larger life of the community. When I meet activists who are changing the world in important, tangible ways, I am somewhat abashed and confused. I have the impression that people often regard the arts as "fun" or recreation or entertainment, somewhat frivolous, and dispensable - a kind of middle or upper class diversion to distract us from the serious realities of life.

I have struggled a little bit with formulating what exactly is so important about the arts. There is the concept of "headroom" - enlargement of the creative thinking space, which art provides. There is also the obvious fact that for me at least, and I suspect, many other people, life would be simply intolerable without art. So we have our slogan, "Art saves lives," which I firmly believe, or perhaps "Art saves souls," as Beethoven is said to have asserted about his own music.

As long as we were singing in the wilderness, or in our closet, studio, or living room, it didn't really matter so much what it might be good for. But now it's been several years of putting one foot in front of the other, offering something very special to a small but growing community.

Part of our vision is a kind of tikkun olam, the putting back together of things which have been sundered, splintered, separated from their roots. It is a vision of healing and wholeness, by way of expression. First of all, our own lives, based on our art.

That all sounds very general, but I can offer plenty of specifics. The splintering of musical genres, for instance, is really an illusion that can be seen through pretty readily. Wherever one looks for a fine dividing line, it disappears, and what is left is pretty universal. The challenge is to draw nourishment and inspiration from the many different sources, and bring them all to bear on one's own particular voice, to express in real time the real human situation of the real human community that is right here, right now. That is what is exciting and precious about art and artists, and life would be quite gray and grim without us.

What do I want to happen at the Ratner? Well, establishing a regular gig there means little or no publicity is necessary, besides people being informed that it is happening every Sunday. I want other musicians to join me there - like, meet me for a public read through of Brahms Op. 25 some Sunday. Or let's survey the Mozart violin sonatas over the next couple of months. It's easy to remember, easy to get to (with car), easy to park, and free. Maybe send email invitations for particular events, like we think we're going to play the Chopin cello sonata on a certain Sunday, and maybe somebody will bring cookies.

I want more scheduled concerts as well - if the whole thing could be easier - maybe hand the ticketing to an internet ticketing service? Send the postcards and emails, and then just show up to play. This whole chamber music delivery system could and should be a whole lot easier. Something is very wrong when there are musicians right here in Washington who are perfectly capable of playing every gorgeous piece of music ever written almost without rehearsal, and there are so few opportunities to play. Who is controlling and limiting the access of the public to this wonderful music? It is a clear case of the difference between need and demand: people have a "need" for cultural nourishment, but "demand" is created by advertising and easy access to facilities and the public. And the advertisers are extremely jealous of their access to facilities and the public, and do everything in their power to maintain their monopoly. Our audience grows primarily by word of mouth. Often I feel as if we work in some oppressive totalitarian state, in which artists are systematically pushed out of the mainstream back into our studios and living rooms. It has taught me that freedom exists only when you fight for it, here as much as anywhere else. God bless our little warehouse in Kensington - it has made it all possible.

Rehearsed for the first time with mezzo Karyn Friedman on the Libby Larsen songs, "Love After 1950". They are just as wonderful as I expected, and Karyn sings them perfectly. What a pleasure! This is music that not only speaks to us, but has something useful to say about our lives. The final song, about moving from solitude into relationship, is astonishingly powerful. Libby Larsen's music can be witty, brilliant, funny, and wild, but in this song it is also serious and deep.

Much music fun recently: David Cheng's gathering, with his Bartok and Schumann, Piaf songs with the French gang, Gail Wein's bassoon, Masa Mitsumoto's cello, and some of my Brahms Sonata. Masa got his cello back ("out of hock" as I joked to somebody), and his playing of Debussy, Saint-Saens and Faure was quite moving. Leslie even played Masa's cello a little bit. All in all, it was a privilege to be there.

The next afternoon I played my second mini-concert at the Ratner Museum. The docent was very appreciative, but the main benefit for me will be really getting a handle on some solo repertoire. I have performed Schumann's Kinderscenen and a Brahms Andante half a dozen times in the last month, and we are becoming good friends. The Museum is such a strong environment esthetically; it feels as if I am playing to an audience of Phillip Ratner's sculptures. They like Schumann, clearly, but Brahms music is harder for them. Bach is great there, but Mozart is more of a challenge. Very interesting. I think child-like innocence, goodness, and reverence are qualities fostered in Phil's art and in his museum, and that ain't so bad.

Solo work is like my teddy bear or blanky. It represents a good part of my childhood, and returning to it is comforting and strengthening. New stuff: Andrew Stiller's "The Water is Wide, Daisy Bell," a surprisingly hearty and evocative combination of two folkish tunes. I play it through to reward myself after I have practised more imminently necessary things. And a piece by Mike Strand on native American songs, also pretty heartfelt. I'll perform them later on at BannerArts in Kensington, maybe when Betty Hauck comes to town on April 24. Don't miss it!