Category: Music

With the rules of the Random 10, the odds of any mariachi music coming into this list are probably pretty slim. But it should be there anyway: I have a three day business trip to Mexico City next week and will be experiencing that fair country for the first time. Should be a heck of a trip; I’m really looking forward to being there now that some of the post-election fallout has settled.

1. MF Doom, “Who Do You Think I Am? (Feat. King Ceasar, Rodan, Megalon, Kamakiras, and Kong)” (Operation: Doomsday)
2. Chris Bell, “Fight At The Table” (I Am The Cosmos)
3. The Velvet Underground, “I Heard Her Call My Name” (White Light/White Heat)
4. Bettye Lavette, “On the Surface” (I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise)
5. Death Cab for Cutie, “We Looked Like Giants” (Transatlanticism)
6. David Byrne, “Walk on the Water” (Look Into The Eyeball)
7. Mazzy Star, “Mary of Silence” (So Tonight That I May See)
8. Sting, “Shape of My Heart” (Ten Summoner’s Tales)
9. The Cure, “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” (Three Imaginary Boys)
10. Bobby Bare, “Shine On Harvest Moon” (The Moon Was Blue)

Last night’s rehearsal of Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron was … interesting. I can’t add a lot to fanw’s characterization of the rehearsal except to note that it’s a little early in the process to be gathering more than first impressions of the work. None of the singers are secure enough yet in the melodic line to really tell what it sounds like.

In fact, the more I hear of it, the more I’m reminded of Marianne Moore’s “Poetry”:

I, too, dislike it.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in
it, after all, a place for the genuine.

Though reading the fuller text of the poem, where Moore rails against poets who are so abstract as to lose all that is genuine, one might think that she is in agreement with fanw.

But I can’t forget a moment toward the end of last night’s rehearsal, where the tenors and then the sopranos took turns singing a twelve-tone “melody” against a block chord in the other voices that was tonal (at least at first). It was strikingly beautiful, breathtaking in fact. And I’m going to hang in there to see if it gets better as we do, if in fact Schoenberg’s music is “not really modern, just badly played.”

Musical discovery of the week: Sufjan Stevens’ delicate masterpiece Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State takes on additional resonance as you’re driving through the industrial outskirts of Lansing. But it still doesn’t cleanse the chorus of “Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)” from your brain.

We are in town for a morning sales call and will be back on a plane, hopefully without snakes, this afternoon. I don’t think I’ll be seeing Snakes on a Plane tonight, but maybe this weekend—I’ll be in Lancaster County for the family reunion and might have an opportunity then.

1. Peter Gabriel, “Powerhouse at the Foot of the Mountain” (Birdy)
2. New Order, “Blue Monday” (International: The Best of New Order)
3. Erasure, “Too Darn Hot” (Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter)
4. Ted Leo/Pharmacists, “Heart Problems” (Shake the Sheets)
5. Sleater-Kinney, “The Fox” (The Woods)
6. Doves, “Caught by the River” (The Last Broadcast)
7. Prince, “On the Couch” (Musicology)
8. Neko Case, “Ghost Wiring” (Blacklisted)
9. Inca Campers, “Vilcabamba” (Outside)
10. R.E.M., “At My Most Beautiful” (Up)

As a cartoon once wrote, “What good is sick leave if you have to spend it being sick?” I’m home today with a random thing that fortunately is showing signs of clearing up, but it’s maddening thinking about all the work I have to do both at the office and here at home and not really being able to touch it.

Ah well. As the Count says in The Princess Bride, “If you haven’t got your health, then you haven’t got anything.”

1. Kronos Quartet, “Forbidden Fruit” (Winter Was Hard)
2. Dexter Gordon, “Gingerbread Boy” (The Complete Prestige Recordings)
3. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, “Details Of The War” (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah)
4. Cascadian Singers, “I. Sometimes with one I love” from “For Comrades and Lovers” (Troy Peters, composer; Walt Whitman, text) (Premiere)
5. Elvis Costello, “Black Sails In The Sunset” (Costello and Nieve: Live At The Supper Club, New York)
6. Spoon, “Take a Walk” (Girls Can Tell)
7. M.Ward, “One More Goodbye” (Old Enough 2 Know Better – 15 Years Of Merge Records)
8. Beastie Boys, “I Don’t Know” (Hello Nasty)
9. Kronos Quartet, “2. November 25, Ichigaya” (Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass)
10. Buddy Holly, “What to Do (Overdubbed Version)” (The Buddy Holly Collection)

Long missing from the US catalog of everyone’s favorite moody goths, this reissue of The Top fills in a void in the CD discography of the Cure—since it was never issued on CD in the US in the first place. But many Cure fans who are hearing it for the first time will find it a puzzling listen. Twenty-two years after its issue, it remains a profoundly unsettled disc that documents a band in transition (and indeed, a band mostly consisting of one member, Robert Smith himself).

My previous review in the Cure reissue series, of last year’s rerelease of Faith, noted that “the darkness that flowered on Faith is what many still consider to be the Cure’s classic sound,” and while that sound is in evidence here, there are a number of other sounds as well—for better or worse. For one thing, the percussion is surprisingly tame for a Cure release, particularly on songs like “Birdmad Girl,” which has a backing track that could have come from any number of 80s acts. The excellent booklet claims that the following track, “Wailing Wall,” was strongly influenced by Smith’s work with Siouxsie and the Banshees, and its atmospherics are appropriately menacing. Other tracks sound familiar in reverse: I found myself wondering if Nick Cave had been listening to “Piggy in the Mirror” when he made “Abattoir Blues,“ the effect is so similar. And the use of the Prophet, that staple of Peter Gabriel’s 1980s recordings, on “Dressing Up” makes the song feel familiar (if dated).

The one track to surface from this album with which I was previously familiar was “The Caterpillar,” which made an appearance on the Staring at the Sea compilation. But where on that release it made a clear connection with other Cure songs like “Lovecats,” “In Between Days” and “Close to Me,” on The Top it stands alone. Yes, the other tracks on the album each have their distinct sound, but nothing prepares you for “The Caterpillar”: the scratchy violin intro, the over-the-top fey vocals, the skittering piano part. This is “happy Cure,” the other personality that is locked inside Robert Smith’s head alongside the glum Morlock, and it still brings a smile after 22 years.

It’s even more amazing that that song crept onto the album when you consider the circumstances of the recording sessions: Laurence Tolhurst drunk or drugged out, Smith himself a few inches from hospitalization (literally—the follow-up tour had to be cancelled thanks to a bad case of blood poisoning), and the rest of the band hardly in the studio (Smith played a lot of this album, except for the drums, himself). In that context, “Caterpillar” seems absolutely miraculous, as does the band’s subsequent revitalization on The Head on the Door.

Bonus material on this deluxe reissue includes the usual assortment of demos and live tracks, including some quite strong demos for never-before-heard songs. My personal favorite, “Happy the Man,” looks forward to Disintegration’s “Last Dance” in its harmonic language even as its lyrics and verbal imagery elude understanding, and was released in its final form as a b-side to “The Caterpillar.”

An essential release? No. But also undeserving of its tag (from Smith himself) of “worst Cure album ever.” There’s a lot on The Top to like.

Osvaldo Golijov visits uncharted territory with his new composition and Music Review: BSO, Golijov appeal with world premiere of ‘Azul’. An interesting pair of articles on Azul, Golijov’s delayed symphonic commission for the BSO and Yo-Yo Ma. Lisa and I attended the premiere and I’m still trying to figure out how the piece actually works.

Boston Globe: After 105 years, BSO to enter a new stage. I’ll be interested to see if there is any audible difference (there will certainly be a difference in the appearance of the floor). I find it interesting that there is so much care taken to reproduce the exact stage floor down to the nails used; certainly Carnegie Hall is a cautionary example, but I don’t think anyone is proposing filling in the sub-stage area with cement. But it’s good to know (albeit a little scary) that the BSO doesn’t know what the stage trap door is for, either…

There were a lot fewer reviews for Seiji’s Mahler 2nd than for previous concerts, though the crowd was much bigger. The reviews were also all about Seiji, though I think the performance of the orchestra and chorus was worth at least talking about:

• Boston Herald: Wiz Ozawa steals BSO shed show (easily my favorite review title ever). “Stutzmann and Murphy sang responsively in their minor solo roles, and the chorus, as usual, sang with nuance and clarity. The orchestra was magnificent, and the roaring from the crowd carried deep into the Tanglewood night.”
• Boston Globe: For Ozawa, an emotional and expressive return to Tanglewood. “The BSO playing was glorious; many episodes, like the brass chorales that used to sputter and splatter, were admirable in ensemble and balance. The hushed entry of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus into the finale was once again an unearthly and spine-tingling moment. There were significant and eloquent instrumental solos from Ronald Barron, trombone, and John Ferrillo, oboe. The vocal soloists were Nathalie Stutzmann, singing with deep-plush contralto tone and warm feeling, and Heidi Grant Murphy, tracing the higher lines with her pearly soprano.”
• Patriot Ledger: Ozawa returns, triumphant, to Tanglewood stage. “In the glorious natural setting of the Berkshires, hearing this epic work capped by the triumphant choral proclamation, ‘Rise again, yes, you will rise again,’ was an uplifting experience.”

So the only thing cooler than singing with Seiji, Heidi Grant Murphy, and Nathalie Stutzmann is having them show up at the choir party afterwards.

It was a weekend of brushes with fame, in fact, some closer than others. Leaving the dress rehearsal yesterday morning, I walked away from the shed and spoke to Lisa, and her first words were, “You touched Seiji!” I responded that I hadn’t been that close, and she said, “No, you dummy, he was standing right in front of you when you exited the hall. You almost ran him over.” Um, oops. In my defense I was still hyperventilating a little bit from the finale.

Then last night the chorus was entering the stage through the side door of the shed, a path which winds by the dressing rooms of the guest performers and the conductor. An older gentleman stepped by as I walked in and commented, “What a long line of performers.” I walked past and did a double-take: it was John Williams, the former Pops conductor and current film composer, who’s been around quite a few Tanglewood performances this summer. I had been within a step of barreling into him on the way to the stage. I walked on by, noting the vaguely familiar woman standing across the hall. When I saw her later at the after-party, I placed her: Mia Farrow. Both were there to say hi to Seiji.

And me? Too gobsmacked, and honestly too tired, to say anything to any of them. Oh well.

Two notes on last night’s performance of Mahler’s Second (“Resurrection”) Symphony at Tanglewood with Seiji Ozawa at the helm.

First, I should know better than to try to make a critical analysis of any work before I actually sing it. A tenor near me was lamenting his difficulty in hitting the high notes at the end of the last movement, and I responded, “There are, I think, some works that are so transcendent that they even transcend the ability of the performer to finish them.” Of course, in the actual performance, it was my voice that cracked on the first fortissimo B-flat on the penultimate page of the choral score. As Monty Python would say, so much for pathos.

Second: I entered the weekend with some uncertainty about Maestro Ozawa’s conducting approach, having gotten accustomed to Maestro Levine’s undemonstrative, understated style. I still have some reservations after the concert. Seiji’s approach to conducting is dynamic and evolving, and I thought at some points that he was placing too much emphasis on emotional content and not enough on precision. But there were decided benefits to his approach too. His dance (and that’s the only thing to call it) on the podium demonstrated to the audience how the music should be interpreted emotionally just as it gave guidance to the orchestra and chorus on how to interpret it musically.

And besides, it’s hardly fair to take points off for precision when he was conducting the entire massive symphony from memory. In fact, I am humbled and shamed about all the times I complained about singing from memory, as he was not only cuing every section perfectly but also mouthing the words to the chorus at the same time, all without opening his score.

So here I am, actually on vacation, no calls to take later for work, in Lenox, Massachusetts, between days of my residency at Tanglewood for the Mahler 2nd. “Oh that magic feeling…nowhere to go.” And of course it’s pouring. Er, has poured, is currently spitting, but looks like it might pour again any second.

What’s a depressive guy to do? Why, crank up the iPod, of course. Today’s random 10 is brought to you by the fine drip coffee (since the espresso machine is broken) and free wifiat the Lenox Cafe, an outpost of Barrington Coffee:

1. Sufjan Stevens, “Vito’s Ordination Song” (Greetings from Michigan)
2. Nada Surf, “Blankest Year” (The Weight is a Gift)
3. Shannon Worrell, “Shoot the Elephant” (The Moviegoer)
4. Soul Coughing, “Maybe I’ll Come Down” (El Oso)
5. R.E.M., “Lotus” (Up)
6. Neko Case, “That Teenage Feeling” (Fox Confessor Brings The Flood)
7. Tori Amos, “Toast” (The Beekeeper)
8. Lambchop, “Suzieju” (How I Quit Smoking)
9. Minus the Bear, “Drilling” (Menos El Oso)
10. Mission of Burma, “Nancy Reagan’s Head” (There’s a Time and Place to Punctuate)

I’m back at Tanglewood, for the last time this summer, to perfom Mahler’s Second (aka “Resurrection”) Symphony with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the BSO. This will be only the second time that I’ve performed the work, and the contrast is pretty significant.

This time, I can hit the high B that the tenors have in the last movement (the only movement in which the chorus sings). I feel as though I’m in command of the music. We’re singing mixed—two tenors next to two sopranos on one side, two altos on the other, and two basses in front of us—which was common under Seiji Ozawa but which we are doing for the first time since I joined the chorus last summer (not counting Pops performances). This means that each of us has to totally know the music—especially since we’re singing from memory.

Last time? Last time was over twelve years ago. The Virginia Glee Club had been invited to join several other Virginia choruses in a performance in Roanoke, which I remember (somewhat improbably) as taking place in a large basketball arena, and that the singers were in the upper bleachers. And I remember driving there with Don Webb and Eric Rothwell, in Webb’s Japanese import with the license plate VMHLB2, and listening to Prince as we talked about the music that we were singing that season. And improbably, on that two hour drive between Charlottesville and Roanoke, just as we were discussing the endless mass that we had been performing all year, which was written by Cristobal de Morales and based on a well known medieval “Ave Maria” chant, the Prince disk worked its way around to “Sexy MF.”

And somehow, someone was singing along to the Ave Maria chant at the same time someone else was singing along to the Prince tune, which yielded “Ave Ma-ri–a…” “shakin” that ass, shakin’ that ass!”

At which point I realized that we were all going to Hell. Forever.

For this reason, my memory of Mahler’s Second is a little dim. So I’m glad I have a chance to do it properly.

Or, more precisely, Power Back On. I’m in my office now, but was working from home this morning because of a power failure that took down our entire building. (Apparently an air conditioner overloaded.) But they fixed it and it’s back to business.

So without further ado, this Random 10, in which the first two tunes are combined greater in length than the next 8:

1. Branford Marsalis Quartet, “Countronious Rex” (Contemporary Jazz)
2. Anthony Braxton, “Cherokee” (9 Standards: Quartet, 1993)
3. The Charlatans UK, “A Time for Living” (Help)
4. Bobby Bare, “Everybody’s Talkin’” (The Moon was Blue)
5. Vic Gammon, “He That Buys Land” (The Tale of Ale)
6. Sufjan Stevens, “Chicago” (Illinoise)
7. Beth Orton, “Conceived” (Comfort of Strangers)
8. Billy Joe Shaver, “Georgia on a Fast Train” (The Third Annual Oxford American Music Issue 1999)
9. Woody Allen, “Summing Up” (Standup Comic)
10. Funkadelic, “I Wanna Know If It’s Good to You (Alt. Version)” (Free Your Mind…And Your Ass Will Follow)

It’s not uncommon for a folksinger’s bio to mention the influence of James Taylor, Suzanne Vega, and Linda Ronstadt. It’s a lot rarer for the bio to go on to mention degrees in classical vocal performance and experience in the Jewish, Arabic, and gospel traditions. It’s almost unheard of for a musician to live up to that many promises. But Carrie Cheron is that rare new recording artist who sounds completely authentic and passionate and at the same time polished and poised. Her debut album, One More Autumn, is a relaxed collection of acoustic performances that shows off her songwriting chops and her burnished mezzo voice to beguiling effect.

Carrie Cheron has been gigging around Boston and New York for a few years, but has also had a series of side gigs, including church musician (through which I should mention that I became acquainted with her, in the interest of full disclosure), that have carried her into some different idioms and musical traditions. The variety of her experience stands her in good stead on Autumn, which has a wide emotional range and plays with some interesting contrasts. The mood of the songs ranges from relaxed and reflective in “Goodbye Amelia,” “Autumn,” and some of the other folksy numbers, to mischievously mellow in “Untitled Song About Drinking Alone” to somber and mournful in “Ghost Town.” To my ears the standout track is “Arms of Our Brothers,” which sounds by turns anthemic and balladic and would not be wholly out of place in a worship service. Carrie’s choice of cover material and texts (including a fine performance of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and an adaptation of Christina Rossetti’s “Echo” as “Julie’s Song”) is solid as well.

Gripes? A few minor ones. Carrie’s voice is sometimes a little too low in the mix, particularly on the first few tracks where the backing vocalist is a little too prominent. While I appreciate the choice of traditional instrumentation, I personally could have done without the mandolin on a few tracks, especially on “Time” where it distracts a bit from the performance. When Carrie’s vocals, melody, lyrics, and accompaniment gel perfectly, as they do on “Arms of Our Brothers” and “A Rainy Night,” they hit with an incisive clarity like sunlight through a high window. Carrie may be her own most sensitive accompanist, as both these numbers are primarily driven by her piano.

My take on the album: it’s a compelling voice heard across a crowded room. I look forward to the next one clearing away some of my production quibbles so we can hear the voice more clearly.

It occurs to me that I’ve posted a couple of lists of review links, but haven’t actually written about the experience of performing great choral masterworks at Tanglewood. First a few specific notes about the Mozart performances, then some general observations:

First, the amount of music that the chorus actually sings in Don Giovanni is quite small compared to the three-hour-plus performance length. To be specific, we had three numbers in which we performed: about sixteen or 24 measures each for the men and women in No. 5 (the wedding song), another entrance for the men toward the end of the first act that lasts about 24 or 32 bars, and then the final scene in act II, in which the men have about 16 bars of devilish chorus work. That’s all told less than two minutes of music. Was it worth it to sit on stage for three-plus hours to sing two minutes of music? Um, hell yes, particularly because we had the best seats in the house for the action of the opera. As I eventually agreed with John at MessagesAboutMusic, the key aspect of this opera was being able to watch it, and we had a clear view of all the comedic interactions between the cast. It was a lot of fun.

Second, the Requiem. I’ve sung this piece a few times before, most recently out in Seattle with the Cascadian Chorale on the first 9/11 anniversary, and each performance is different and unique. For one thing, I learned the piece in a non-Süssmayer edition almost 10 years ago with the Cathedral Choral Society, so the memorization part was interesting: I was quite confident with the piece through the first few choral movements but realized a few days before the concert that I was quite shaky on the Offertorium movements, primarily because they had been omitted the first few times I performed the work. But I eventually pulled it together.

This concert was the first time with the TFC that I feel like I really understand why we sing music from memory. Memorizing for a guest conductor can be tricky, since frequently the conductor wants different interpretations of the music from that which was memorized, and there are only a few rehearsals (maybe as few as two) in which to re-learn the music. But singing with Maestro Levine is different.

I observed last year at Tanglewood that his conducting style is different than others with whom I’ve sung. He stopped a rehearsal of Mahler’s 8th and said to the first violin section, “Look at your scores for that passage. I think you’ll see that Mahler wanted something different than what you’re playing.” No histrionics, no micromanaging, just appealing to their native musicianship to bring out a coherent performance.

It appears that he takes a similar approach to working with choruses: if you provide him with a well thought through, passionate performance, he works in that context to provide feedback. But he never microconducts emotional context, dynamics, fugue entrances, etc. because he relies on you as the performer—yes, even the individual chorus member—to bring that to the performance. It’s daunting if you’re used to conductor-tyrants, but it’s liberating and exhilarating if you can own the music and invest your own energy in the performance.

I’ll be interested, after three concerts with Levine in a row, to see how things go with Seiji Ozawa in August. From what I understand it’s a night and day experience.