{"id":7427,"date":"2012-09-19T11:56:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-19T15:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=7427"},"modified":"2012-11-02T02:57:12","modified_gmt":"2012-11-02T06:57:12","slug":"the-dying-artform-on-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=7427","title":{"rendered":"Stravinsky Lovers Unite!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Alastair Macaulay’s review in Thursday’s Times <\/em>reminded me of the two-week Stravinsky-Balanchine mini-festival that opens New York City Ballet\u2019s fall season. <\/em>No performing organization in the world offers so much Stravinsky in a single season\u2014and so authoritatively.\u00a0These two weeks commemorate NYCB’s 1972 and 1982 Stravinsky festivals; I saw every program of both those festivals. There are only three programs this time around, and every\u00a0music\u00a0and ballet fan should see them. I\u2019ll have more to say when I have.<\/p>\n

The Dying Artform on TV<\/strong><\/p>\n

I resist hitting the mute button when I hear classical \u201cbeds\u201d for TV commercials. Within five minutes last week, a movement from Vivaldi\u2019s Four Seasons <\/em>served as background to Donald Sutherland\u2019s Delta commercial, followed by another baroque beauty in the next round of commercials. A couple of hours later on Nightline<\/em>, the ominous pulsating of waves lapping onto the beach of Rachmaninoff\u2019s Isle of the Dead<\/em> underscored a commercial for The Master<\/em>, a new movie starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. I\u2019m definitely interested in hearing how the music is used, and reviews were positive, so if it\u2019s still in the theaters when my MA Directory<\/em> deadline is over I won\u2019t wait for the video.<\/p>\n

Huh?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Republicans scorn fact checking, but the Mannes School shouldn\u2019t. Descriptions of two Mannes orchestra concerts in a press release sent my mind reeling. In an effort to be kind, I won\u2019t divulge the young author\u2019s name and assume that he likes the music.<\/p>\n

On Friday, September 28 at 7:30 p.m<\/strong>., the orchestra will perform Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin<\/em>, an act from the early 20th century pantomime ballet Trauer-Symphonie<\/em> by Haydn, and Bernard Herrmann’s North by Northwest Suite<\/em>.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, October 30 at 7:30 p.m<\/strong>., the program will include work from The Firebird<\/em> by Stravinsky and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chol\u00e9 Suite No. 2<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first concert, the students will almost certainly play Bart\u00f3k\u2019s 20-minute Suite<\/span> from The Miraculous Mandarin<\/em>, not the complete version with chorus. <\/em>Let\u2019s further assume that a comma is missing after \u201cballet\u201d and that Haydn did not arrange Bart\u00f3k\u2019s music into separate acts and retitle the work Trauer-Symphonie<\/em>. Still, what does \u201can act from the early 20th century pantomime ballet\u201d mean? Bart\u00f3k\u2019s continuous half-hour ballet has no \u201cacts,\u201d although there are three \u201cdecoy games\u201d where three tramps force a girl to seduce men from the street into an apartment to rob them. The suite contains all three of the decoy games.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t heard of an official North by Northwest Suite<\/em>. If I were in town, I\u2019d probably go to this concert just to hear how much of this great Herrmann film score would be played. But I\u2019ve got all the recordings and a laserdisc and two DVDs of the film. (I see that a Blu-ray version has just been released too.)<\/p>\n

As for the second concert, what in heaven\u2019s name does \u201cwork from The Firebird<\/em>\u201d specify? The complete 45-minute ballet music? One of Stravinsky\u2019s suites (1910, 1919, or 1945)? And the unfortunate typo in Ravel\u2019s ballet suite makes poor Chlo\u00e9 sound like an intestinal bacterium.<\/p>\n

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

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

9\/19 Avery Fisher Hall. New York Philharmonic\/Alan Gilbert; Leif Ove Andsnes, piano. Kurt\u00e1g: \u00a0…quasi una fantasia …<\/em> . Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring<\/em>. OPENING NIGHT.<\/p>\n

9\/20 Miller Theater. ICE\/Steven Schick; Jessica Aszodi, mezzo. Cage: Music for ___; Variations III; Atlas Eclipticalis<\/em>; Radio Music<\/em>; 1\u20195\u00bd\u201d for a string player<\/em>; Amores<\/em>; The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs<\/em>. Boulez: Le marteau sans ma\u00eetre<\/em>.<\/p>\n

9\/24 Alice Tully Hall. Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mozart: Serenade in C minor for Winds, K. 388. Kod\u00e1ly: Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, Op. 12. R. Strauss: Serenade in E-flat for Winds, Op. 7. Dvo\u0159\u00e1k: Serenade in D minor for Winds, Cello, and Double Bass, Op. 44. OPENING NIGHT.<\/p>\n