Journal of a Sabbatical

April 2, 2000

music

Berwick Heights Music

Today's Reading: Early Spring in Massachusetts: from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H. G. O. Blake

Music is a tricky subject to write about. Words are not enough to convey the experience of a piece of music, or why live music feels substantially different from recorded music, or what makes music "good" or "bad" or a performance "good" or "bad". Even if words were enough, I don't know them - having little formal musical training (recorder lessons in the third grade don't really count ). But today was a music-filled day.

Last night Nancy and I went CD shopping in Harvard Square. Much to my surprise and delight Yat-Kha's Yenisei-Punk, which I've wanted for a long time, has been reissued. Also the $20 version (as opposed to the $30 version, which just has a larger format booklet) of Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones was in stock at HMV. So I picked up two items on my want list while Nancy browsed - and I think read every tiny word on every tiny liner note - in the jazz room for more Lester Bowie.

This morning, Nancy thought listening to Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones would be good preparation for going to the LUMEN Contemporary Music Ensemble Spring Concert this afternoon. Weird modern music on weird experimental instruments does prepare you for weird modern music on traditional classical instruments I guess. We listened to everything we bought plus Sweet Sunny North - the Henry Kaiser/David Lindley collection of Norwegian music - trying to pay close attention to what was going on. Sort of opening our ears.

The LUMEN Contemporary Music Ensemble plays 20th century music, especially pieces by its member composers, of whom my friend Stuart Jones from ancient prehistoric days at Cosmodemonic Telecomm is one. Nowadays the only time I get to see Stuart is at the annual spring concert. Other friends from ancient times who like Stuart's music gather at these things for a bit of a reunion.

Today's program featured performances by Ken Radnovsky , members of the Auros Ensemble, and and the Massachusetts High School Flute Choir playing music by Andy Vores, Stuart Jones, Armand Qualliotine and Pasquale Tassone.

The Vores piece, Night Life, was based on a series of photos by New York photographer Weegee, sort of a modern nocturnal version of Pictures at an Exhibition. A program insert contained grainy photocopies of the pictures. It might have been easier to follow the progression of the music related to the photos if they had been projected on the wall instead of having everybody flipping pages in their programs - especially since the concert was being recorded - but the photos did add something to the music. Kenneth Radnofsky was masterful on the saxophone. I gather he was the one who commissioned the piece, so it's not surprising that it showed off his talent.

Stuart conducted Armand Qualliotine's Hopeless and his own Out of Time.

The Qualliotine piece featured a wonderful singer who really made her voice into an instrument. The lyrics were based on fairly mediocre poem, but the music of her voice made it into something else. It almost didn't matter what the actual words were. The meaning was in the sounds of the syllables shaping the notes.

Out of Time struck me as the most "modern" work on the program but I am at a loss as to explain why. Nancy says Stuart has "fear of melody" but that's not it. I think what makes it sound really modern to me is the pattern and progression that's at once so obvious and so not traditional classical music. In some ways it's the least accessible piece on the program. Maybe that's what makes it sound and feel modern. You really have to listen with open ears and use your brain to follow it. It sort of rewards your attention - the more attention, the more you enjoy it. Anyway, I loved the pizzicato part. Not being a music critic I can always fall back on just saying what I liked. And I really liked this.

The Massachusetts High School Flute Choir blew me away. I'd never heard that many flutes together before. Tassone's piece, Pipes of Pan, was written specifically for this flute choir and they were quite at home in it. The music took me somewhere else. I admit that my mind did wander onto the ergonomics of playing the bass flute. A slight girl was playing a gigantic bass flute and right behind her was a strapping boy playing a rather small flute. I kept wondering how the girl could hold that huge flute for the whole performance.

One of my comments to Stuart afterwards was that the program fit together as a whole. There seemed to be relationships among the pieces. He said that was accidental, but it definitely added to the enjoyment for me.

After the concert the "friends of Stuart" and the "parents of the flute choir", which seemed to pretty much make up the audience gathered for refreshments. We got to meet Stuart's fiancé. Congratulations to them both! As always with these brief annual reunions, we all had just barely enough time to catch up on each other's lives before Stuart had to catch the train to New York.

Nancy and I went out to dinner at House of Tibet Kitchen. We were trying to discuss the music we just heard and modern classical music in general, but we were seated next to a table full of eight women who seemed to be all students of the same Tibetan geshe. The one at the end of the table closest to us - that is her chair touching our table - was telling a long, loud, involved, animated story of how she came to study with geshe-la. It grew harder and harder for us to block her out and have our own conversation. It was so funny we just started laughing instead of trying to talk anymore, and ate in silence while we listened to her.

Back home, the Russian parking space blocker's son was practicing the drums. He plays in a rock band. The band's horn player started in practicing the title song from Jesus Christ Superstar over and over and over and over and over again. He did not seem to improve with each iteration. What a way to end a music-filled day.