Tour -- Paris

Our next stop was Paris. We were booked for two concerts in the Salle Pleyel. The Salle is near the Arc de Triomphe, a few miles away from the center of Paris.

In a previous post I described some musical walks I took in Paris. This time I'd like to discuss where to go running. Paris is a big, busy city with lots of traffic of all kinds, so running can be frustrating and even dangerous.

However, there are some good places to go. The public areas around the Louvre and Tuileries are fine for short runs of a couple of miles or so. The Parc Monceau around the corner from our hotel is also fine for quick exercise.

If you want longer runs, though you have two choices (at least these are the obvious ones). The first follows the riverside promenades by the Seine. While these don't cover the whole length of the river through the city, they are very nice and give views of the city you can't get elsewhere.

The other place that affords the runner the opportunity to really stretch out and get away from the city while remaining reasonably close is the Bois du Boulogne.

This is a large area that has lots of woodsy paths of all kinds from dirt to pavement. There are numerous routes to take and plenty of things to view while running.

And I do mean plenty . . . for these woods have been used for centuries by those practicing the world's oldest profession! In the more remote areas, bikers, walkers and runners will encounter women plying their "trade" in various forms of attire (or lack thereof).  Some have vans or huts in the woods for use with patrons.

If prostitution is illegal in France, the law is certainly not enforced in the Bois du Boulogne. We saw plenty of cars stop and wait at curbside for the "workers" to appear.

One of Manet's most famous paintings deals with the subject of prostitution in the Bois.

Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe is the painting above.



















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Tour -- Frankfurt and Beethoven

Next we traveled to Frankfurt for two concerts. We arrived in the early afternoon just in time to catch a breath and then go to a short rehearsal of the Beethoven Violin Concerto which we would perform that night with violinist Christian Tetzlaff.

The Alte Oper in Frankfurt is a hall which has been completely gutted inside and modernized. You wouldn't guess from the exterior which is in the 19th century heavy, Germanic style. Inside it is cavernous with a sort of raspberry colored hue on the seats, wall and floor. Banks of lights and  speakers betray its mult-purpose use.  The acoustics are also cavernous and comfortable with a lot of bass resonance.

Tetzlaff gives a very personal, stylish performance of the Beethoven Concerto, emphasizing its intimate side over the monumental.  He also avoids Joachim's cadenza, using his own patterned after the one Beethoven wrote for the piano arrangement of this piece.

Here is his performance with the Tonhalle Orchester on YouTube.  About 18 minutes in you can hear this cadenza.

There is a timpani accompaniment to this that's fun. It's not a very cohesive cadenza musically -- much of it seems to have little to do with the first movement themes.  But a nice change from the usual. Gidon Kremer also wrote a cadenza that challenges the tradition of Joachim.

The performance went well considering we just rehearsed once for an hour and then played the piece.

The next day I went for a rainy, cold run on the banks of the Main River, then sought out a music store near the hotel -- Musikalien Petroll -- which  has a basement full of used music. I bought parts and score to a Vivaldi Bassoon Concerto for 3 Euros.

That night we played the Beethoven Mass again.

Tour -- Hamburg

We flew overnight to Hamburg. Arriving in the morning we had the rest of the day free to settle in and get acclimated. My strategy for getting over jet lag is to stay up as late as possible the day of arrival with no napping and no alcohol. I try to get a lot of exercise, whether it's running or just a lot of walking. I expect to feel lousy all day, but I usually sleep well that night and feel better the next day.

Hamburg is a great city for biking and running. There are two lakes and many canals with paths around them. The larger lake, the Aussenalster is beautiful and surrounded by park land, yacht clubs and villas. It is just over 3 miles around.

Running has really caught on in Europe. Each time I'm here I notice more activity.

By contract we get the next day off to recover from jet lag. This is very helpful. You can practice, look around and rest. The instrument trunks, which are shipped separately from us, are often not yet loaded into the hall so they are sometimes not available. For each trip you have the choice to pack the bassoon or carry it with you.

However, if you play a larger instrument like cello,bass or contra bassoon, you have no choice. These cannot be carried on the plane, obviously.  Thus, those who pack their instruments are forced to spend  a few days away from them at the start of the tour. Some people enjoy the break, others don't like it.  One of our members has a fold-up cello he packs so he can practice during those free days.

In large European cities there are often other major musical events going on while you're there. Hamburg was no exception. Alan Gilbert was there conducting the North German Radio Orchestra the night before our concert. Previously our Assistant Conductor, Gilbert came to our concert and made contact with many of us. Also present was our Music Director Laureate, Christoph von Dohnanyi. He has roots in Hamburg where his brother was the mayor.

Brahms was born and grew up in Hamburg (see photo above). It is a city with a rich musical heritage.

Tour -- NYC

New York

To start our tour we made a short stop in New York. Not originally envisioned as part of this European tour, it was added after the fact. We played in Avery Fisher Hall as part of the White Lights Festival. The term comes from a quotation by Arvo Pärt in which he describes his music as having the characteristics of white light (White light contains all the colors of the light spectrum).

Our program was  indeed colorful, but perhaps Olivier Messiaen's "Trois Petite Liturgies" with its kaleidoscopic tonal palette fit the Festival's theme most exactly.

I played on the Beethoven Mass in C Major. Overshadowed by the  Missa Solemnis, it is a beautiful, concise work. We performed it with our Chorus and will feature it several more times during our tour.

The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus has not toured with us for several years. It is a pleasure to have more Clevelanders with us on this trip.  Their itinerary doesn't exactly match ours as there are several programs on this trip that do not use the Chorus.

They had a long day: travel, performance and then travel.  The Orchestra flew the Chorus back to Cleveland right after their performance to save on hotel rooms.  The Chorus will not join us until Frankfurt a few days later.

After the Avery Fisher concert, Phil Austin, his wife Emily, who is a Chorus member and I met Lenny Hindell, former Second Bassoonist of the New York Philharmonic for a late-night snack.

The next day I went for a run in Central Park. The finish gate for the New York City Marathon was still up (the race was two days earlier).  One day I hope to run THROUGH that gate!

After my run I cabbed uptown to the Manhattan School of Music where I gave a master class.  Before hand I stopped in for an espresso at Kuro Kuma nearby.

Reed Making in Your Hotel Room

When on the road it's hard to find a good light source in a hotel room for reed making.  Here's a very ingenious and cheap solution to this problem.

This is an LED mini lamp from IKEA. It has a USB connection so it can plug into your laptop or other  device.

It costs just a few dollars. Above is the name and the package it comes in.  I don't think it's available online from  IKEA.  I got mine in a store. Thanks to my student, Joe Cannella for telling me about this light!

Here it is in action:

Music as Speech -- Quiz Answers!

In my last post I listed several pieces in which there are embedded messages about performance style or what I would call musical rhetoric.

Since no brave soul has come forward yet to give answers, here they are:

1. Siciliana

This is the Adoration of the Magi, the second movement of Respighi's Botticelli Triptych. Good Italian that he was, Respighi depicts the Magi's coming to the Holy Family with a Siciliana rhythm:

The Siciliana or Siciliano rhythm has been used for centuries by composers to depict pastoral scenes like the one depicted in that manger in Bethlehem.

Like many ancient rhythms it has become part of the rhetoric of musical style. Undoubtedly this rhythm existed in melodies long before our current notation system was adopted. Therefore, any interpretation of this rhythm must be undertaken with the understanding that the notation on the page is just an approximation of what the rhythm should feel like when performed effectively.

After the performer can accurately execute the rhythm exactly as printed on the page, he must recognize the rhythm is code for a particular style -- in this case, the Siciliana.  Then the execution must be altered slightly.

The characteristics of a Siciliana are a moderate or slow tempo and a lilting feeling.  These can be accomplished by showing the flow of quarter/eighth, quarter/eighth, etc., with the eighth acting as a pick up note to each successive quarter.

The sixteenth note in the middle is just a gentle addendum to the eighth note. It should not be emphasized or given much weight.  The weight in the phrase goes from quarter to quarter with the eighth acting as an uptake of energy and the quarter as a release of that energy.

Here would be my way of grouping the three notes.  As you can see, the notation system used doesn't allow for this to be made explicit. So often the beaming and bar lines in music simply function as a mathematical accounting system and can get in the way of good phrasing and musical style.

Sometimes the execution of this rhythm is taken a step further by delaying and lightening up on the sixteenth so that it becomes close to a 32nd note.

Here is an effective way of performing this passage from the Hindemith Sonate:

 Note also the tenuti on the dotted eighth notes (Hindemith) and the staccato (really more of a lift than a staccato) on the 16ths and 8ths (Stees). These changes, along with the displacement of the 16th give the music a lilt that it would lack with a literal interpretation of the rhythms and articulations on the page.


2. Fanfare

Here is another dotted rhythm, this time articulated and in a fast tempo. This is a Fanfare or Signal rhythm. You could trace its roots back to ancient times when brass instruments were used to signal in hunting or to present royalty.

Practice evolved over time -- perhaps in order to make the announcement or call more stirring -- to put a space or lift between the dotted note and the short note.  Used by Mozart in the last movement of his "Jupiter" Symphony it adds a royal flourish to the motives of the movement.  In conjunction with the use of trumpets and timpani in the orchestration the audience at the time would have at least subconsciously felt the allusion to royalty.

There are echoes of this style in the Bassoon Concerto, especially if the performer chooses to articulate the first dotted rhythm:

3. Implied meter. In these examples the composers stray from the printed meter for a short time. They leave it up to the performers to find these hidden codes.

Mozart Symphony #40, mvt. 3

Saint Saëns Sonate, mvt. 2

Music as Speech, Part 5 Embedded Messages - A Quiz

OK, now it's your turn!  Look for the embedded messages in these parts, comment on what you find and how YOU would interpret them. 

1.  Respighi: Adoration of the Magi from Botticelli Triptych
     Hindemith: Sonate for Bassoon, mvt. 1

 

   

2.  Mozart: Symphony 41, last mvt.

     Mozart: Concerto for Bassoon, 1st mvt.

 

 

3.  Mozart: Symphony 40, 3rd mvt.

     Saint-Saëns: Sonate, 2nd mvt.

     Tansman Sonatine, 1st mvt.