tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14383972134884490572024-03-05T20:48:20.189-08:00Music Set to WordsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12385676785837128233noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1438397213488449057.post-15080655956384922872012-12-17T18:38:00.000-08:002012-12-17T18:38:20.466-08:00Music for A December Day<div align="center">
<strong>“Music for a December Day”</strong></div>
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<br /></div>
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or</div>
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<br /></div>
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<strong>“It was supposed to be a six minute Christmas carol overture </strong></div>
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<strong>and it grew into a thirteen minute tone poem </strong><br />
<strong>that captures, for me, at least, a treasured moment in the lives of my </strong></div>
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<strong>sons and somehow says</strong><br />
<strong>so much that I would want to say about them and me, about me and Christmas, </strong></div>
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<strong>and about </strong><strong>public attitudes toward poverty and greed.”</strong></div>
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<br /></div>
If you’re still reading….<br />
<br />
I began composing “Music for a December Day” in August in
anticipation of this concert. I had thought of the title some time ago –
music that would capture a winter holiday mood, with clear references
to Christmas by way of carols, but also a more generalized sense of
“winter”as experienced in the northern hemisphere.<br />
<br />
The first musical idea that occured to me was the very opening
gesture that recurs several times – the whoosh of a rolled cymbal,
followed by tinkly bell sounds: a wind and ice crystals.<br />
<br />
I knew that I wanted to treat some traditional carols in a kind of
overture – brisk, festive, though not without its more reflective
moments. I like “Good Christian Men Rejoice” (aka “In Dulci Jubilo” )
for its antique simplicity and vigor, and for a few minutes I thought
that the whole piece might be a set of variations on that one melody.
“Nah…” thought I.<br />
<br />
Then another image came to mind, a particularly cherished one that I
immediately wanted to evoke somehow in musical terms: the sound made by
my sons’ feet as they raced down the stairs on a Christmas morning about
ten years ago. This image finds its way into the music in a rapid roll
through several tomtoms at the conclusion of the piece, but also in the
headlong race of notes in the strings after the slow soft introduction.
This idea led to some fast paced “running” music that breaks into “love
and joy come to you” – “The Wassail Song”.<br />
<br />
A longer, original melody arches up and this tune, for some reason, I
also associate with my two sons (to whom, with their mother, Marjorie,
the piece is dedicated). The tune serves as a contrast to the racing
music, and keeps the piece from being a medley of carols, as it lends
some perspective on the traditional melodies.<br />
<br />
Early in the process, it occurred to me to place instruments offstage
at the beginning of the piece. The final version has several members of
the brass section playing from backstage at the outset. They become a
bit like carollers without, calling in reminders of “In dulci jubilo”.
At another point, they emerge in the hall to play antiphonally with the
orchestra and, for the grand finale, they converge on stage. I like to
think that there will be a certain electricity in that moment from the
mere fact that everyone is all together, finally. I considered
subtitling the piece: “some assembly required” – words that cause
existential despair in parents around the world on Christmas Eve.<br />
<br />
The middle section is a grim rendering of “<span class="yshortcuts" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed #0066cc; cursor: pointer;">God rest ye merry, gentlemen</span>”.
This carol is fascinating for its ambiguity. The text is a holiday
salutation (it’s “rest ye merry, gentlemen” not “rest ye, merry
gentlemen”) containing in its many verses a thorough outline of
Christian incarnational and soteriological doctrine but the tune is in a
somber minor key, turning to the major in the penultimate phrase, and
then, usually, returning to the minor on, of all texts: “tidings of
comfort and joy”. This juxtaposition invites many thoughts, which
occurred and recurred to me in all the hours I spent composing:<br />
<br />
- the tune dates from Dicken’s <span class="yshortcuts" style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0 50%; border-bottom: 1px dashed #0066cc; cursor: pointer;">London</span>.
In all of his novels Dickens was sharply critical of British society
that made poverty a crime and justified greed by
clothing it in the regalia of commerce, class, empire and the church.
The same attitudes are still all too present in our own
society. So I used the modal ambiguity of “<span class="yshortcuts" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed #0066cc; cursor: pointer;">God rest ye merry</span>” to make a social protest.<br />
- in the dark streets of London, someone sang a poignant song about
being merry and it caught on. The song is very English – a veiled
appeal for charity made in a kind of a smiling-through-tears,
stiff-upper-lip manner, and all while wishing well the passing
“gentlemen”, a term then used to refer only to
men of the moneyed class who owned property.<br />
- “<span class="yshortcuts" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed #0066cc; cursor: pointer;">God rest ye merry</span>” is very like that English round we learned in grade school:<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;"> Heigh! Ho! Nobody home! </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;"> Meat nor drink nor money have I none. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;"> Yet I will be merry! Heigh! Ho! Nobody home.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
- This singer is an impoverished beggar and somehow he exhorts
himself to be merry. Again the song is in a minor key, probably dating
from the same place and period as “<span class="yshortcuts" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed #0066cc; cursor: pointer;">God rest ye</span>…”. The offstage brass play “Heigh! Ho!” as the orchestra is in full cry in “God rest ye…”.<br />
- It’s a grim business, being joyful in deprived circumstances.<br />
- Both songs are a subtle plea for charity and the plea is made, mostly, by the notes themselves, not the words.<br />
<br />
- The Bible has more to say about greed than it does about, oh,
say…homosexuality… and all of it unambiguously negative. So why don’t
the crazed zealots carry “God hates greed” signs?<br />
<br />
As the sad song ends, we recall again the running children, and jubilant
strains. “In dulci jubilo” is played twice in its entirety – once in a
full orchestral tutti with flying counterpoint in the strings and
woodwinds and again in a litling, 5/8 rendition with solo oboe. The
“CB/JB” theme (my sons’ initials) stretches out once again, with the
entire orchestra on stage and a few codas bring the piece to an
ebullient finish. Realizing a deep darkness in the world, we can turn
and be warmed and forgiven by the smile of a child, in the light of
which, the importance of riches or the lack of them fades to
insignificance. Even Scrooge came to think so, and was motivated to make
changes.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12385676785837128233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1438397213488449057.post-2628218236529253622012-08-27T13:18:00.000-07:002012-08-27T13:18:04.499-07:00The Art of Listening<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC05yVy54GNFYOlZr2Nnm2U4CYwVwv14GKVUgiYpqbCAzsw1vxw13GsUZ5wxoevIH-7tbgiD3TV1okqyIkvqg0EFUKwR0Ra2SObMrVfoQQu_h4pDmX3TqWedC1dYsCJQKZ1RGCl00a8ANU/s1600/488px-Nymphs_Listening_To_The_Songs_of_Orpheus,_by_Charles_Franc%CC%A7ois_Jalabert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC05yVy54GNFYOlZr2Nnm2U4CYwVwv14GKVUgiYpqbCAzsw1vxw13GsUZ5wxoevIH-7tbgiD3TV1okqyIkvqg0EFUKwR0Ra2SObMrVfoQQu_h4pDmX3TqWedC1dYsCJQKZ1RGCl00a8ANU/s320/488px-Nymphs_Listening_To_The_Songs_of_Orpheus,_by_Charles_Franc%CC%A7ois_Jalabert.jpg" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nymphs Listening to the Songs of Orpheus<br /><span class="fn value">Charles François Jalabert</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Okay... for the <span class="il">interval</span> of your next five
breaths, just focus on your hearing and make a catalog of the number of
discreet sounds you’re perceiving. Go ahead. How many different
sounds or sources do you identify? Some are near at hand, others are
out of sight and some, I expect, are off in the distance. At present,
I’m hearing a fan next to me, the call of a bird out the window, a mower
off in the distance and, oh, yes...much closer ...a high-pitched whine
ringing in my ears (tinnitus?). Some sounds you may be quite conscious
of, while others may have surprised you that they were even there to be
heard. <br /><br />Our sense of hearing is designed primarily as an early
warning system to inform us of opportunities
(“It’s a prospective lunch!”) or threats (“I’m a prospective lunch!”)
that are not visible. It’s a function of the auditory processing parts
of our brain to filter out some sounds and make them wallpaper - they no
longer signal a threat or opportunity and the brain files them away so
we can be more aware of any new sound that comes along. Other sounds
are given precedence - sirens, squealing tires, or, inexplicably, the
voices of kids playing “Marco Polo” in the pool next door.<br /><br />At
some point in human history, our sense of hearing became a very
important component of the communication system - the receptor of that
system of audio symbols we call spoken language. At another point in
our history - perhaps even before the advent of language - we began to
create music: art that was to be perceived through the ears. Music
functions like verbal communication, sometimes, but at others it does
not and it is unique in our experience.<br /><br />So unique is that
experience that, in western culture, we built concert halls and created
events that were specifically designed as music delivery systems. This
tradition still continues, but it is being transformed (some would say
“threatened”) by technological and social changes that adversely affect
our aural attention span. I firmly believe that for music, and
especially symphonic music, to remain viable, we have to re-capture and
do whatever we can to enhance the magic of the listening experience for
those in attendance. <br /><br />As music director of the <a href="http://www.tuscarawasphilharmonic.org/">Tuscarawas Philharmonic</a>, I am passionate about its present and future. The music
director’s traditional concern can be summed up as: “What is the
orchestra playing and how well is it playing it?”. But I must be as
concerned with another question of equal importance: “What are people in
the audience hearing
and how well are they hearing it?” <br /><br />Orchestra education
programs are certainly nothing new, but I believe that the emphasis on
the act of listening to art for the ear may be lost under a plethora of
well-intended details about flutes and Bach and sonata form. In our
concerts, the orchestra is on stage in bright lights, and the soloist
and conductor make their entrances, but it is actually the listener in
the seat who is the featured artist. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12385676785837128233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1438397213488449057.post-8627840130490353992012-08-27T08:53:00.000-07:002012-08-27T13:12:08.164-07:00Don Quixote Composing A Sonata for Viola<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8OgvyMIId134sWwly1xU6bdKYDOM612vSAjBllfhHotjg8mp6BvRqwJaZLEnnYgUZ9vxv2INWaj2WfEcKKROkSAtaXnRXZhGKrhH8BN51DPbeuk_jbQJ2puoKjIFkq-oZ4q1cvjs1J-49/s1600/416px-Honore%CC%81_Daumier_017_(Don_Quixote).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8OgvyMIId134sWwly1xU6bdKYDOM612vSAjBllfhHotjg8mp6BvRqwJaZLEnnYgUZ9vxv2INWaj2WfEcKKROkSAtaXnRXZhGKrhH8BN51DPbeuk_jbQJ2puoKjIFkq-oZ4q1cvjs1J-49/s320/416px-Honore%CC%81_Daumier_017_(Don_Quixote).jpg" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="fn">Don Quixote und Sancho Pansa<br />by Honoré Daumier, 1868</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It’s “stealth” composition.<br />
<br />
One of the few times I’ve written a piece with no particular occasion in
mind, and my only assay in writing a chamber piece thus far.<br />
<br />
It’s called a sonata and I like the term, with its prescribed formal
characteristics and heritage, but I’m also aware that the established
features are quite arbitrary. I think of the piece and the form itself
as an essay - or perhaps more like a musical diary- an intimate,
personal musical vehicle with some emphasis on abstract content (form,
harmony, melody, development, recapitulation) supplied by tradition.<br />
<br />
But I’m recalling that I have not always looked with delight on the
prospect of hearing a sonata on a recital program. There can be a
prosaic, perfunctory quality to the writing in some (at least, it so
seemed to me in years past - I have heard few sonatas recently) and
there is no sense of adventure or engagement of the listener in the
music. The term “sonata” denotes a piece to be played (rather than
sung) and I wonder if composers have tended to think of it primarily as
music for the pleasure of the player, rather than that of any listener.
The music becomes about the performers.<br />
<br />
I have decided to allow myself to be very spontaneous in the
composition and structuring of the piece. Specifically, I have it in
mind to shape the piece to suit a listener with a short attention span
(or ADD), change the subject a lot, go off on tangents, circle back,
cross-reference, multi-task, channel-surf and any other analogies one
can think of for basically indulging in a musical fantasy with, I hope,
enough traditional structure to lend some bone matter to the piece.<br />
<br />
The component about cognition is an important one - I wonder to what
extent any composer has ever thought of what the listeners will be
experiencing and <i>how</i> different individuals in an audience might
process things in an individual way. Most of the time, in talking about
the actual composition process, composers tend to talk about a given
piece in terms of what it demanded, formally or harmonically or what
have you. (Lerdahl and Jackendorff, in “A Generative Theory of Tonal
Music”, do look at composition and analysis from the perspective of
neurocognition. Haven’t read it yet, no.)<br />
<br />
Well, to try to account for how individuals will process a given
piece is a futile exercise, as even a small group of people will have
wildly differing perceptive capabilities, so, in the end, the composer
satisfies his own sense of form and style in a work. I’m doing this,
too, but I find that I always have some imaginary listener in mind and
occasionally, that listener might be me, with an attention problem and
an eagerness to be lured and led and charmed and engaged and even
arrested, in episodes that change out and recur with some frequency.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12385676785837128233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1438397213488449057.post-85733399571811680972012-08-27T08:49:00.002-07:002012-08-27T08:49:57.693-07:00"Hope..." and AudacityMy setting of Emily Dickinson’s “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”
is intended to be a kind of anthem to be sung at Mount Holyoke’s
homecoming, known as “Family and Friends Weekend”. The poem seemed a
fitting choice for a piece d’occasion, as a secular affirmation of faith
and a celebration of the heritage of the college. Emily Dickinson
attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, the college’s predecessor,
and the poem is one of her more popular ones. I had talked about the
project with my colleague Kimberly Dunn Adams, the choral director, and
she agreed that it would be good for there to be a tailor-made piece for
performance by the students and the Family Choir (parents and friends)
that gathers that day.<br />
<br />
So it was that on a gorgeous morning in the first week in July, I sat
down before a blank sheet of music manuscript and a copy of the poem
and started making up music. My computer and synthesizer were not on
speaking terms, so I had to resort to the old fashioned method of pencil
on paper and I found it enjoyable. It is a particularly fun exercise to
look over a poem and see it as a kind of “map” of what the music can do
in relation to the words. (Technological problems would continue
through the summer and threatened to bring the whole project to a dead
stop in September.)<br />
<br />
I had come up with an opening motive for the first words “‘Hope’ is
the thing…” - up a fifth, down a fourth, up another fifth - D-A-E-B -
strong and ascendant. And I sketched away with delight, sitting at the
open sliding door in Bernice Hartman’s livingroom in her light-filled
and airy house in the woods in Tuscarawas County, Ohio.<br />
<br />
Outside, behind the house, hissed a stream that dropped through a
crevice in rocks to form a waterfall with an adenoidal gurgle. The
wooded ravine, on an early summer morning, was alive with bird calls,
and one - that of a robin (I thought) - attracted my attention, as it
used a motive that is a reduction the tune I had come up with for the
first phrase. And that introduced the notion of underlining the avian
metaphor by writing bird calls for a flute ensemble to play in the hall
at points in the piece. So I sat there taking dictation from the birds,
feeling only a little like Olivier Messaien, who listened to much more
complicated birds than I.<br />
<br />
One of my first ideas for the setting was one I shared with Kim back
in the spring, and that was the sound of voices whispering the first
verse in canon. I imagined the sound to be something like the rustling
and flapping of wings. I further realized that his whispering chorus
was a role that the audience could play in the piece, and that what I
was creating was more than a choral setting of a famous poem, but an
event - an opportunity for performers and audience to “make” the piece.<br />
<br />
The third verse begins with an evocative line: “I’ve heard it in the
chillest land,”. The word “chillest” sounds like a shiver, and I could
imagine the sound of the accented “ch” as it echoed around Abbey
Chapel. I decided that while the audience whispered the text, the
chorus would sing it on reciting tones, as chant. Back in my days of
deep involvement with Episcopalian liturgy, I once sang such a chant to
the accompaniment of free ringing handbells and the experience is a
little like levitating. I decided to employ the technique here and this
brought the handbell choir in on the collaboration. I used them at other
points in the piece as well.<br />
<br />
The middle verse, “And surest in the gale is heard” allowed me to
write some storm music, and to create a new melody for the chorus that
could be repeated several times as the storm builds in the orchestra.
The choral part, by the way, had to be kept conjunct and rhythmically
uncomplicated to allow for performance by students and amateurs on very
limited rehearsal time.<br />
<br />
Along with bird calls, there are two other sounds of nature that, I
feel, have especially potent “musical” qualities and those are the
different varieties of rainfall and thunder. I had hoped to be able to
incorporate these effects in the piece by means of a synthesizer but
that element will have to wait for a second installment. As it is, I
employed some low rumbles in the bass instruments (especially using some
dull roaring fifths below the actual harmonic bass pitch) to simulate
the effect of distant thunder.<br />
<br />
Dickinson’s poem succinctly concludes with the third quatrain and on a
meek, rather self-deprecating note, which was not the tone I wanted to
finish with. So, I took the liberty of recapping the first verse and
it’s anthemic tune, sung first by the choir, then the audience is
invited to join in as the treble voices sing a descant. This makes for
an affirming, ringing finale that drifts off into a cloud of handbells,
bird calls and the voices of all participants as they whisper the first
verse again, to a conducted fade out.<br />
<br />
Those whispered texts are, perhaps, the closest many of the
participants (myself included) have come to praying in public for some
time. All the while I worked on the composition, the ‘08 presidential
campaign was being waged and I was gratified that the poem linked with
the hope-filled message of Barack Obama. Only a few weeks later, those
prayers were answered with an even more ringing affirmation.<br />
<br />
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8rCqO1TNNKQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12385676785837128233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1438397213488449057.post-26611349670791964472012-08-27T08:46:00.003-07:002012-08-27T08:46:56.592-07:00"Peter Grimes" at the OctoplexThe people along the sand<br />
All turn and look one way.<br />
They turn their back on the land.<br />
They look at the sea all day.<br />
As long as it takes to pass<br />
A ship keeps raising its hull;<br />
The wetter ground like glass<br />
Reflects a standing gull<br />
The land may vary more;<br />
But wherever the truth may be–<br />
The water comes ashore,<br />
And the people look at the sea.<br />
They cannot look out far.<br />
They cannot look in deep.<br />
But when was that ever a bar<br />
To any watch they keep?<br />
Neither Out Far Nor In Deep<br />
Robert Frost (1936)<br />
<br />
There is a fleeting, awkward moment in the first scene in act one of
Britten’s “Peter Grimes”, when the inhabitants of The Borough are
assembled on the waterfront at dawn. After greetings to principals and
petty gossip, sniping, and customary gentilities, there sounds an abrupt
discord in the orchestra. Wise old Captain Balstrode squints out to sea
and describes the storm that is brewing: “…the wind is holding back the
tide. If it veers ‘round, watch for your lives.”<br />
<br />
In the Prologue that precedes this first scene there is a similar
parade of main characters that introduced each to the audience. There,
in a makeshift courtroom, a hearing is underway to determine the cause
of death of Grimes’ apprentice. Each principal is called to give
testimony and each reveals more about his own character and motivation
than about the incident in question. So there is a redundancy in the
opening scenes, with all of the principals identified by name, and
relations between them depicted in brief exchanges. Then, in the second
“introduction”, the subject of the weather is abruptly brought up,
announced by the melodramatic chord in the oboes. The placement makes
“The Storm” another character in the story and the portentous chord
seems a little obvious.<br />
<br />
The Storm arrives on stage in the second scene, with Balstrode and
Grimes shouting defiantly into the wind as the rest of the cast heads
for cover. Balstrode urges Grimes to leave The Borough, or at least,
marry Ellen, the widowed schoolmarm who cares for him. Grimes rejects
the first suggestion - The Borough is home and these people, as petty,
narrow and dismissive as they are, are his people. As for the second,
Grimes seems to want to achieve some kind of commercial success and
status, to beat the townspeople at their own game and win their
approval, before settling down with Ellen. As the storm music builds in
the orchestra, he sings the soaring phrase: “Her heart is harbor, too,
where night is turned to day.”<br />
<br />
According to Britten and his librettist, Montagu Slater, women in the
fishing village have an assigned role: to be the opposite of life at
sea for the men. In a later scene, Ellen, Auntie (the proprietress of
“The Boar”, the local pub), and Auntie’s two “nieces” sing an ensemble
in reaction to being dismissed by the men from the important business of
the community. Auntie asks: “And need we be ashamed because we comfort
men from ugliness?” And the four join in the refrain: “Do we smile or do
we weep or wait quietly ‘til they sleep?”<br />
<br />
Well, one has to make allowances. This is opera, after all, and
things have to be baldly stated in the lyrics, much as one attempts to
be poetic, because it all goes by pretty fast, even when the tempo is
languid. More important, Britten and Slater were two gay men trying to
write about heterosexual relationships and the best model that they seem
to have had is their own relationships with their mums. So, even the
young prostitutes assume a maternal role in the ensemble. It is,
however, the most sublime music in the opera.<br />
<br />
Similarly, Grimes repeatedly refers to Ellen as a refuge from the
vicissitudes of life. Love, companionship, community - all forms of
human interrelating, but especially love, are the opposite of “The
Storm” - life, with all of its contrariness, isolation, cruelty, pain
and death. The storm/life metaphor was easy to read in the recent
Metropolitan Opera production.<br />
<br />
On Saturday, March 15, I sat in a movie theater in North Canton,
Ohio, watching the Met HD live broadcast of the matinee performance,
and, often, found myself sobbing uncontrollably. The meaning of tears as
a symbol and signal in the perception of art is a subject I want to
explore in detail sometime, because tears do seem to represent some
deeper level of perception in the aesthetic experience. But for now,
I’ll isolate some of the thoughts and feelings that flowed with the
tears.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #0c343d;">
<strong>Gratitude.</strong></div>
I was so grateful for the opportunity to finally see a staged
production of this opera. I first encountered it thirty-five years ago,
and only now was I seeing it performed, and that by virtue of the
miracle of digital technology and the entrepreneurial vision of Peter
Gelb at the Met who thought of the idea to broadcast live to movie
houses around the globe.<br />
<br />
I was grateful to hear it so well played and sung. The Met Orchestra
is a crack group, led here by the formidable Donald Runnicles, and the
engineering was worthy of the great musicianship at play in the
execution of the score. The sound was deep, rich, well balanced,
beautifully mixed and it was thrilling to hear Britten’s complex
textures and colors performed live. Much as I admire film scores, studio
orchestras and film composers working today, Britten’s score takes
things to another level altogether and to hear it sound so spectacular
in real time was deeply gratifying. I have always found Britten’s music
to be arresting and profoundly expressive, and the artistry also
inspired tears.<br />
<br />
The voices were spectacular. Patricia Racette’s Ellen Orford was a
warm and vibrant mezzo, Anthony Michaels-Moore (Balstrode) and Teddy
Tahu Rhodes (Ned Keane) both have commanding baritones and Bob Boles’
ringing tenor (as sung by Greg Fedderly) made his ringing, judgmental
inveighings entirely earnest and credible. The title role was played by
Anthony Dean Griffey, a young man of towering physical presence. His
voice is exquisite for its combination of intelligence, power and
lyricism.<br />
<br />
The chorus is given a unique role in this opera, being more than mere
extras for crowd scenes and massed vocal textures. They are another
character on stage that relates to the named principals, musically and
dramatically. Indeed, the provincialism and gossip of the residents of
The Borough is as much a force in the story as is the storm. The Met
Chorus sounded splendid and impressively tight even in the rhythmically
tricky sea chantey “Old Joe has gone fishing”. The camera gave us
glimpses of characters and actual acting taking place within the ranks
of the Met Chorus, lending depth and texture to the dramatic action.<br />
<br />
This brings up some complaints I have with aspects of the Met
production. I wished that the stage had not been so flat - some
platforms to either side downstage would have lent some verticality to
the crowd scenes and allowed the audience to see more of the characters
being played in the chorus.<br />
The weathered wooden wall served as a good backdrop and a blank,
unyielding exterior against which the drama was played. Doorways and
windows opened to provide narrow frames in which characters appeared -
an image of the lives being lived behind the shuttered windows of the
homes in The Borough. However, the same wall was made to serve as the
interior of The Boar and I wished someone had thought that out more to
make it seem less perfunctory and merely cost-effective.<br />
As good, overall, as the acting was, I felt that there was much that
could have been filled out in the character of Griffey’s Grime. In scene
two, he comes into the pub from the storm looking none the worse for
wear (when the libretto calls for him to look particularly disheveled
and mad). The powerfully poetic and lyrical “Now as the Great Bear and
Pleaides…” should be a glimpse of Grimes the visionary poet as he sings
to himself over a pint at the bar. In the negative space of the
too-improvised Boar interior and with the chorus sitting at his elbow,
the aria had no particular effect because the set up and the staging
seemed prosaic.<br />
<br />
What if the chorus had frozen and Griffey was able to wander among
them, musing aloud on mortality, regret and loneliness, trying to make
eye contact with this one or that, before returning to his drink and
concluding the soliloquy? The sporadic choral entrances (”He’s mad or
drunk.”) that follow would be perfect music to reanimate the chorus and
for time to move on.<br />
<br />
Grimes is a cantankerous protagonist, and there is much about him
that is ambiguous. It’s never clear whether he is culpable in the death
of the apprentice and his relations with the replacement later in the
story veer from caustically abusive to somewhat parental to something
vaguely pedophilic. (That impression may stem from the knowledge that
Britten was particularly attracted to young boys. A little research
online reveals that pederasty was alluded to in initial drafts of the
libretto.) One thing that is quite clear about Grimes, however, is that
he is lonely. Even as he dismisses The Borough and its inhabitants, he
feels a link with the place and its people and wants their acceptance.
And, yes, he longs for that special, defining relationship with Ellen.<br />
<br />
Anthony Dean Griffey’s Grimes seems too young for Ellen Orford and
its hard to glimpse what they see in each other. On the other hand,
she and the dapper Balstrode (Anthony Michaels-Moore - we are in the
land of the Three-Named People) would seem to have a promising future as
they stand together on the beach as Grimes sails off to suicide.<br />
<br />
<strong style="color: #0c343d;">Memory.</strong><br />
Seeing the opera brought back memories with vividness and I realized
why this rather simple story grabbed me as a lovelorn high school
senior. It is about loneliness, really, and it dramatized a too familiar
reality. For all of its overwrought sentiment about male/female
relationships, the yearnings of Grimes voiced my own longings then and
now. That the story ends with his suicide only heightens the tragedy of
loneliness and dreams denied.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #0c343d;">
<strong>The Message: Storm and Sea</strong></div>
In the end, it was the storm that impressed me the most. The metaphor
prompted thoughts - these poor characters, stuck in their fishing
village, seeing life as a dangerous, fearful experience, and thwarted in
their bids for happiness through meaningful relationships. It’s the
paranoid’s view of the human condition that sees one as being victimized
by life. But if one keeps in mind that Britten and his circle were gay
men in a society that prosecuted homosexuality, the metaphor becomes
less easy to dismiss. A loving relationship appeared as a dreamy
paradise and society and all of life outside of that relationship were
threats to that vision of happiness in 1940’s Britain. I was vividly
reminded of a storm I witnessed on a previous March 15, and its portent
of threat to a harbor I had found.<br />
<br />
And at the conclusion, there is Britten’s music, with its lingering
gestures depicting the ceaseless motions of the sea and of time, and the
large themes of love, isolation, loneliness, death and regret.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12385676785837128233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1438397213488449057.post-30219716682572682772012-08-27T08:37:00.003-07:002012-08-27T08:39:18.398-07:00Tim, Johnny, Helena and Sweeney, alas…I so wanted to like it. I saw the original cast on stage in Boston and it was an evening that changed my life, at least in terms of what I might have aspired to in creating music theater.<br />
<br />
Tim Burton has such a unique style and that he even wanted to tackle “Sweeney” made me cheer. Another production! And Johnny Depp’s ability to create an intense and nuanced character excited my imagination, though I couldn’t imagine how he would manage the vocal aspects of this very operatic score. Well, “special effects” are usually visual effects, so maybe a creative director like Tim Burton will figure out an audio equivalant. Or maybe Johnny will concoct a singing style that will emerge from his characterization of Sweeney and make him even more sympathetic and give voice to his deep rage at the injustice that ran in the streets of 19th century London.<br />
<br />
I was bothered immediately when the brooding, dark organ prelude played behind the Warner Bros trademark and the shimmering image of the WB studio lot. Why not show those, then begin with a dark screen and that music? I tried to let Burton do what he felt he needed to do make the transition from stage to film, but I kept seeing mistakes and harmful omissions. It kept reminding me of “Nightmare Before Christmas” and especially “The Corpse Bride”, with their coy ghoulishness, especially whenever Helena “sang”. “Sweeney” is only tongue-in-cheek in the “Try a little priest” scene. (Which was pretty effective though I wish they had not cut any of the song.)<br />
<br />
All of the voices were recorded so closely that it sounded as though the microphone was placed between their teeth. The singing was not happening in the same “space” in which the actors were moving and speaking. The music, so central to Stephen Sondheim’s creation, here it seemed as though it was piped in and not intrinsic to the drama.<br />
<br />
Much of the vocal performance was sort of pop style, with lots of swooping into pitches and innocent-sounding unsupported tone. Anthony was a wimp. Johnny Depp went to a raw voiced, rocker sound early and had no where to go for “I’m alive at last, and I’m full of joy!” or the lament over the dead Lucy. The tenor range seemed just wrong for Sweeney. (The woman singing Joanna redeemed “Green finch and linnet bird” for me, however. Though the staging of it missed the whole point of the song! Jeesh! “Uh, Steve, we thought we’d just leave out that part and not bother with the girl and bird in the cage parallel, okay?” “Uh, well…okay. I guess…how much am I getting paid for this? Oh…sure…whatever…”) I don’t get it.<br />
<br />
I could make a long list, but there were two things that bothered me the most and leave me with the opinion that the movie is a failure. The first is the nonsequitur that occurs when Joanna is in danger of being murdered by Sweeney and he lets her go. Something was out of order in the stage action as adapted here, I think, and it seemed awkward and very unthrilling when Sweeney just let her go. (I recall holding my breath in terror when I saw that scene on stage, and was relieved when she escaped.)<br />
<br />
The second was the bloodletting of Sweeney at the end (’way overdone!!!) and the omission of the ballad at the close, because in one lyric, the point of the story is made: it’s not about cannibalism, much less about copious amounts of very fake looking blood, the story is about revenge in the face of social injustice. “No where to run, no where it hide, isn’t that Sweeney there beside you?” Revenge is shown to be a most compelling motive, especially in a situation as unjust as was portrayed in the story, but it is a WMD and revenge easily involves the innocent and creates more injustice and does nothing, really, to set things right.<br />
<br />
Forget the movie, find the original cast soundtrack - it works as audio theater. Or find the video that was made of the original cast production. Or come see it when we stage it with the Tusc Phil…someday… “Oh, Mr. Burton, sir, if you please, can you spare 50 grand?”
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12385676785837128233noreply@blogger.com0