{"id":2320,"date":"2011-08-05T02:30:53","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T06:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=2320"},"modified":"2011-10-11T00:47:46","modified_gmt":"2011-10-11T04:47:46","slug":"precision-isnt-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=2320","title":{"rendered":"Precision Isn’t Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been in the thrall of \u201cperfect\u201d playing for so long that sometimes it takes a less than precise ensemble to remind us of genuine character. The Royal Danish Orchestra, under its music director Michael Sch\u00f8nwandt, had it in spades last week in its delightful program of native son Carl Nielsen\u2019s strange little Pan and Syrinx <\/em>and his irresistible Clarinet Concerto, followed after intermission by Stravinsky\u2019s complete Pulcinella<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Nielsen\u2019s tongue-in-cheek sense of humor informs both of these works. Nila Parly\u2019s program notes on Pan and Syrinx<\/em> tell us that \u201cFive days prior to the premiere, Nielsen\u2019s daughter, Anne Marie, was married to Hungarian violinist Emil Telm\u00e1nyi. Nielsen had been slow in granting his permission for the marriage, and the fact that his wedding gift to the young couple was the dedication of this particular symphonic poem about a lascivious musician who pursues an innocent nymph and transforms her into his instrument, speaks volumes about Nielsen\u2019s own perceptions of his son-in-law.\u201d Perhaps, except that Telm\u00e1nyi soon became his father-in-law\u2019s closest friend and a lifetime champion, performing and recording his Violin Concerto and other works as well as conducting the first performance of the Clarinet Concerto.<\/p>\n

The clarinet is hardly overrun with solo vehicles, yet Nielsen\u2019s high-spirited, thoroughly engaging concerto is not often played. (Nor, mysteriously, is his more playful Flute Concerto.) He had intended to write concertos for all his friends in the Copenhagen Wind Quintet but only finished two before his death. Both pieces were impishly tailored to their soloist\u2019s personalities. The hot-tempered clarinetist\u2019s fiery solo line was challenged by the subversive rat-a-tat-tat of a snare drum; the fastidious flutist was pursued by a buffoonish trombone, interestingly the instrument that Nielsen himself played in military band.<\/p>\n

The Nielsen works received superbly committed, idiomatic performances by all, notably the orchestra\u2019s principal clarinetist, John Kruse, in the solo role.<\/p>\n

I was sitting way down front on audience right of Alice Tully Hall. Balances would have been better in a central location, but I might not have appreciated as much the wonderful double bass players in my lap or the virtuoso bassoonist in my sideways sight line. Under no circumstances could I have overlooked the fine concertmaster, Tobias Durholm, but never before have I been so aware of his quasi solo role in Pulcinella<\/em>. On the debit side, while the strings were always expressive, ensemble was untidy at times; moreover, the oboe\u2019s quacking tone was not to my taste, and the flute couldn\u2019t always negotiate Stravinsky\u2019s scurrying passagework. The singers were challenged, as ever, by the composer\u2019s unrealistic demands. This is a really <\/em>difficult piece! But music <\/em>was being made, and I walked out of Tully a happy concertgoer.<\/p>\n

Woody and MoMA<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sunday afternoon at MoMA followed by Woody Allen\u2019s latest film, Midnight in Paris<\/em>, <\/em>turned out to be the most enjoyable artistic couplet since the last time I saw Paris. Entranced in the flesh, so to speak, by Picasso\u2019s Seated Bather<\/em> (1930) and then seeing it onscreen hours later was a treat available only in New York.<\/p>\n

“You\u2019re Next! You\u2019re Next!\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

. . . shouts Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) as he stumbles frantically between cars on a California freeway, trying to warn the drivers of impending doom in the classic 1956 sci-fi film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

New York Times<\/em> film critic A.O. Scott did a well-timed piece on this celluloid shocker in the paper\u2019s Web site on Tuesday (8\/2), the day of the final congressional vote on America\u2019s debt ceiling controversy. The plot: Seed pods from outer space take root in Santa Mira, California. They reproduce themselves in identical human form, complete with the minds and memories of the local inhabitants\u2014except that they are devoid of emotions and their only instinct is survival. Fifties\u2019 critics saw it as a commentary on McCarthyism or Communism. Today one might imagine the pod people as Tea Partiers or the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

I was struck by a readers\u2019 response to Scott\u00a0from Brian in Philadelphia:<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I’m concerned, \u2018Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u2019 has already occurred in my lifetime. As a middle-aged man who can easily remember a time when no one cell phoned, blackberried, or even wore a beeper, I think I perceive what a good many cannot, apparently: That the world is now cluttered with the bodies of people who simply are no longer present.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you happen to look up from your glowing handheld device, you too may see them wandering down the street, texting as they walk, oblivious, for all practical purposes, gone. Persons to whom one might pose a question, who stare at you blankly until they’ve removed their earbuds to blearily ask you to repeat yourself. Gamers lost in fantasy worlds, inaccessible, frozen. People who come to a sudden standstill in doorways, persons parked in the middle of public stairways, who have slipped into a cell phone coma, not so much expecting others to accommodate them but unaware that others exist at all. As everyone accepts this as normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not my fault that I can see this. \u2018Body Snatchers\u2019 conveys what it’s like.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a slightly different take on Wednesday\u2019s Op-Ed page, in a piece entitled \u201cWashington Chain Saw Massacre,\u201d Maureen Dowd evoked not only Body Snatchers<\/em> but also Alien<\/em> and The Exorcist <\/em>as well as nearly every other horror film image from Dracula and Frankenstein to \u201ccannibals, eating their own party and leaders alive.\u201d It would be hilarious if it weren\u2019t so true.<\/p>\n

Looking Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n

My week\u2019s scheduled concerts:<\/p>\n

8\/6. Walter Reade Theater. Stravinsky on Film. 2:00: Janos Darvas\u2019s 2001 documentary, Stravinsky: Composer <\/em>and the composer leading his Symphony of Psalms <\/em>in Hungary. 4:00: Julie Taymor\u2019s 1992 production of Oedipus Rex <\/em>and Pina Bausch\u2019s Rite of Spring <\/em>with the Tanztheater Wuppertal and the Cleveland Orchestra.<\/p>\n

8\/8. 7:30: Alice Tully Hall. International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)\/Pablo Heras-Casado; Peter Serkin, piano. All-Stravinsky: Study for Pianola; Fanfare for a New Theatre; Lied ohne Name<\/em>; Epitaphium<\/em>; Three Pieces for String Quartet; Ragtime; Concertino; \u201cDumbarton Oaks\u201d Concerto; Eight Instrumental Miniatures; Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments.<\/p>\n

8\/8 10:30: Kaplan Penthouse. ICE\/Pablo Heras-Casado. Stravinsky: Pour Pablo Picasso<\/em>; Bach (arr. Stravinsky, ed. Hogwood): Four Preludes and Fugues (sel.); Stravinsky: Epitaphium<\/em>; Finnissy: Untitled piece to honour Igor Stravinsky; Denisov: Canon in Memory of Stravinsky; Berio: Autre fois: Berceuse canon\u00edque pour Igor Stravinsky<\/em>; Carter: Canon for Three Equal Instruments: In memoriam Igor Stravinsky; Schnittke: Canon in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky; Stravinsky: Octet.<\/p>\n