WMV Music Web Log

Today we do the mailing for the June 25 concert at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. David and Leslie (board members) and artist friend Joyce Weinstein will help send out 900 postcards. I cooked eggplant parmesan and tabouleh and Marilyn made some ice tea before leaving for her studio. After all, it is Memorial Day.

I decided to call the third Atlas concert DC3. The multi-talented Charley Gerard edited and improved the email announcement we will send out along with the postcards. (I just finished reading his book "Salsa: The Rhythm of Latin Music" - more about that later). Here is the announcement:

Dear Friends of Washington Musica Viva,

On Sunday June 25 at 3:00 pm, Washington Musica Viva will present “DC3: Washington Music, the Way It Was And Is!” It’s the third concert in WMV’s series of chamber music plus poetry at the Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Theatre II. All the composers on the eclectic program were either born in the city of Washington, or thrived here artistically.

WMV’s superb and versatile ensemble will perform Jelly Roll Morton's "Black Bottom Stomp;" three Duke Ellington songs arranged by Charley Gerard; two Rilke Songs by National Symphony Orchestra co-founder Mary Howe; "Tango Afligido" by tango-obsessed Arlington composer Michael Strand, Six Short Pieces for alto saxophone and piano by University of Maryland’s Lawrence Moss; "Memphis TN" by PBS composer Charlie Barnett; and "Song of the Exile" by Dr. Ysaye Barnwell (of Sweet Honey in the Rock) in an instrumental arrangement by Charley Gerard.

Performers include mezzo-soprano Karyn Friedman; Rhonda Buckley, alto saxophone; Ben Redwine, clarinet/baritone saxophone; Sonya Hayes, violin; Jodi Beder, cello; Steve Tomlinson, trombone; Blair Goins, tuba; and Carl Banner, piano. The featured poet is Brandon D. Johnson. (See below)

The Atlas Performing Arts Center is located at 1333 H St NE. Tickets are $20 general admission, $15 for students, seniors, artists. Call the Atlas Theatre box office, 202-399-7993, for reservations.

For directions, go to http://www.atlasarts.org/ and click on "contact".

Please forward this email to people who you think should know about this program and about WMV!

Poem by Brandon D. Johnson:

betting dad

all i see is the bottoms of bare feet
out of reach up the broad gray trunk
branches yielding to his strangling limbs.
the tree groans as my father digs
heels and toes into crevasses
ants use as pathways.
bark cracks drops around my feet
as from a glass tower pummelled by summer storms.

he beats the tree like all things that rise
above a boy’s understanding of earth life
the mathematical odds of surviving
in a world that will not wait for me to grow.
i watch him chagrined and fearful of his hold on this
behemoth. i want him back to ground
to safety. i'm willing to lose anything but him to the tree
the yawning sky's jaws
but he digs toes into crackling growth
as carefully down as up.

i didn’t know how much money i’d lost
until he and i talked about calculating
one cent doubled every day for thirty.
you don’t want to know.
but eight-year-old me hadn’t learned
never bet your father and
never bet a country-boy that he
can’t climb a tree barefoot.

Ira Chaleff writes:

Carl,

Such rich reviews! It's great that there are people who really understand what goes into a performance, can appreciate the work at the level it deserves and have the platform to spread the good word. I'm so glad you and your group feel encouraged - that is so important to sustaining your commitment when you are woefully-under-compensated cultural innovators outside or ahead of the mainstream.

All the best,

Ira Chaleff

George Pieler at Ionarts wrote a very positive review of Tuesday night's concert at the Ratner Museum. There are some nice words like: "stunning intensity"! We feel appreciated and encouraged.

Jon Morris writes in his blog:

Washington Musica Viva at The Dennis & Phillip Ratner Museum, 5/23/2006

Another winning concert from WMV... Opened with Bach's Cantata No. 82 - sung beautifully by Gary Poster. It was done as a chamber piece - one player per part, which created a gorgeous kind of intimacy. Soprano saxophone was substituted for oboe, which really worked nicely. Rhonda Buckley played it beautifully. Her soprano sax playing has a warm, rich tone that blended nicely with the strings - a much more luxurious sound than an oboe. I hope they made a recording - I wish I could link to an mp3 so you can hear how that worked...

Next up, Faure's La Bonne Chanson. As I've written before, I'm not such a huge fan of classical vocal music, but this piece is an exception to my rule (and now I can add Cantata no. 82 to that list as well - seems like anything Gary Poster sings winds up on my growing list of exceptions). Mezzo soprano Karyn Friedman delivered a rock solid performance - teetering on the edge of losing control, just as the poems are. I think this is the first time I've heard this set of songs done by a female voice? Well, it works just fine that way. The ensemble was excellent (string quartet and piano).

After intermission (where all of Cameron's cookies were enthusiastically devoured), we heard Ernest Bloch's Piano Quintet #1. It was given an energetic and convincing performance, but I wasn't really won over by the piece. Lots of homophonic string writing, there were very few sections where the strings really got to function independently of one another. There were a small handful of "modern" elements and effects, but overall it sounds pretty conservative to me. I think that might be my hang-up with Bloch's work overall... it's not "modern" enough to be interesting for unique sounds and textures, and not conservative enough to stand up as "neo-classical" either. The quintet certainly has its moments, but I felt like it's a bit longer than it needs to be. That being said, the performance was super. Carl Banner (piano) was joined by Sally McLain (violin), June Huang (violin), Betty Hauck (viola), and Amy Leung (cello).

A friend of mine present at last night's concert sent this very nice email:

"This was an amazing experience. The music was exquisite: eclectic,
personal, perfect. There was an intense sense of excitement and joy from
the musicians; and of the privilege of being there from the audience.
The Bloch piece blew my mind - and gut - as I guessed that it would.

It was also wonderful to experience Carl's leadership and inspiration: I
felt real love and appreciation from the other musicians for leading
them to such heights."

Although the satisfaction of playing this wonderful music is sufficient in itself, getting appreciation for it feels very good.

I was down in Fredericksburg on Tuesday to rehearse Faure´ with Karyn Friedman and Bach with Gary Poster. These are both glorious singers who happen to be married and are very busy with their two little boys. So baby sitting is a key issue. Bran's runny nose kept him home during the rehearsal, so he popped in every now and then. It has got to be a different kind of childhood to hear those gorgeous voices all the time growing up.

I get to do some serious listening on these trips to Fredericksburg. This time it was Charlie Barnett's "4 Cities", Poulenc Sextet, Saint-Saens Septet, Shostakovich Quintet, and Leo Smit Trio. I didn't get to the Hans Gal Trio, which kept sliding off the seat. I was not in the mood for Shostakovich - it is the recording of the composer performing with the Beethoven String Quartet. Oddly, the Shostakovich sounded very Beethoven-related - the fugue comes right out of Op. 131. The Smit was very exciting - I want to play it with Betty Hauck and Ben Redwine, and they like it too. The big surprise was the Saint-Saens. My general impression of his music is that he was sparing of his inspiration, offering a few great moments scattered here and there through otherwise fairly pedestrian works. What was striking about the Septet, however, is that every time the trumpet comes in, one thinks, "what a fine instrument the trumpet is, how noble, how pure, how exciting...!" Either the trumpet player on this recording is a genius, or the composer found a way to make every entrance a dramatic opportunity, or both.

It's odd, but the planning for a concert gets really intense just about the time that the big push occurs to rehearse the one prior to it. Marilyn and I sat down last night to figure out the June 25 Atlas concert - the program, poet, promotion, postcard ... my goodness, what alliteration! Planning program poet postcard promotion performers publicity press...

Well, anyway, it is coming together wonderfully. Brandon Johnson agreed to read to promote the publication of his new book. Ysaye Barnwell gave the go ahead on the arrangement of her setting of Alicia Partnoy's poem "Song of the Exile". The Jelly Roll Morton score and parts for Black Bottom Stomp arrived. Charlie Barnett sent his violin & piano piece "4 Cities" for Sonya Hayes. Charley Gerard found and sent his arrangements of three Ellington songs, In my Solitude, All Too Soon, and I've Got it Bad (And That Ain't Good). Maurice Saylor found some beautiful Mary Howe songs for Karyn Friedman. And Rhonda will play Larry Moss' wonderful saxophone pieces. And Ben Redwine agreed to play baritone sax in Charley's arrangement of Song of the Exile.

I meanwhile must figure out what to play (and not play) on Black Bottom Stomp and send it to Charley for approval. You should hear the Hot Pepper Five slowed down 50%! It is boggling.

As usual, we have to leave some good things out - Larry Heinen's & Thelma Stein's solo piano pieces, some more Sousa, Robert Gibson's clarinet piece, Sidney Bailin's premiere, etc etc. But there is next season. And this DC composer and poet focus appears to have legs.

From composer Mike Strand:

I wanted to express my support again for your efforts to re-work parts of Bloch, and also to encourage your work on arranging the piano part to the Bach cantata to your liking. Would the composers themselves be offended as much as a few of their fanatical admirers, who might feel any alteration to be sacrilege? I like to think not. Composers often go back to their own works with a cold eye and the ambition to make improvements, or even changes for the convenience of performers.

But what about another person reworking the composer's original? Some folks seem to put composers, past and present, into two broad classes -- those whose original scores are sacred and unalterable, and the rest. Assuming the class of composers we are talking about here are all human beings, who is to say whether any of them, and which ones, happened to be inspired by an absolutist muse or god?

If the "reworker" is someone who knows a work well enough to understand what the composer was trying to say, depict, or portray and tries to preserve that in the changes, how can the composer be offended? For both living and deceased composers, surely they have or had hopes that their music would continue to be played and admired, possibly even as rearrangements. Just consider the piano arrangements of Beethoven's symphonies, the jazz arrangements of popular songs such as "Blue Moon", or the many arrangements one can find for old Argentine tangos. Notes and instruments have to be added or left out, passages simplified or made more complex. Making the music more accessible to a wider audience and to more performers would please most composers, I would hope.

Working on the Bloch Piano Quintet - I've performed it with two different groups, over a period of almost 15 years, but it is still intimidating. I've been thinking about what it is about; why it is so hard; and what to do about it.

What it is about - Bloch had undergone a kind of religious conversion, in which his Judaism assumed a central role in his thinking. The Quintet was published in 1922 with a big star of David on the front - I have the original edition, with aunt Thelma's fingerings - she played it, who knows who with, probably soon after it was written. The slow movement tempo indication is Andante mistico - I think he meant mystical, but I don't know what the Italian is supposed to be. There is a kind of insistent repetitious theme throughout the 35 minute work: D-A-D'-A. That's funny, I just went to the Dada show on Saturday. However, I think Bloch's intent was more grandiose: a kind of musical translation of the 4 letter name of G-D, yod hay vov hay. The invocation of this name is also associated with raising of the golem, the frankenstein-superman-savior of the Jewish people. Anyway, pure speculation...

Why is it so hard? One reason is that he makes unreasonable demands - too many notes in too short a time, impossible stretches, breakneck tempos, different meters between the strings and piano that are unsynchronizable. It is a wild and woolly work. But there is something compelling in it that almost makes it possible, seemingly by supernatural means. I would rather not rely on that, however, so I am rewriting the impossible sections. I can make just as much noise with 24 notes as with 36, after all, and they will be more accurate.

Charley Gerard just emailed me an mp3 of his arrangement of a powerful Ysaye Barnwell song (of Sweet Honey in the Rock) that she had sent to me a few days ago. I had asked her for something to perform on our DC composers series at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. Charley's arrangement sounds incredibly good, even as a synthesized mp3. Rhonda Buckley will play soprano sax, Ben Redwine baritone sax, Blair Goins tuba, I'll play piano, and we'll get one of Ben's top-notch Naval Academy Band colleagues to play trombone. If Dr. Barnwell is OK with it, we will perform it at the Atlas on June 25. Charley Gerard is also helping out with arrangements of Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton (both DC composers). Focusing the Atlas programs on Washington composers is turning out to be a great idea. And thanks to Jodi Beder, we have Charley Gerard on board to make something like this possible.

This morning Rhonda Buckley and I read through Bach Cantata #82, programmed for the May 23rd concert. She played a smokey soprano saxophone obbligato, much sexier than the oboe that typically plays the part - it sounded wonderful! And I tried out my own continuo part - that is, I had filled out the harmonies on Bach's bass line, adding shreds of melody here and there. Most of it worked great, and I will fix up the bad parts. What is so exciting is that we will be performing this Cantata with full string quartet, saxophone, and continuo, backing up Gary Poster's beautifully expressive bass voice!

Then I came home and read through the Fauré Bonne Chanson with earphones on, playing along with a (slowed down) recording. This work will feature Karyn Friedman's (gorgeous) mezzo soprano, full string quartet, and piano. And it is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard.

I'm not even going to mention the Bloch Piano Quintet (maybe later). This is a big concert. How did I get away with programming this blockbuster?