music Archives - Page 66 of 268 - Ramblin' with Roger

The Lydster at Carnegie Hall

As I noted, my sister was in a mass choir singing the Mozart requiem at Carnegie Hall on Monday, June 13, at 8 pm. To be honest, I was willing to let my daughter blow off school, go down to NYC with me on Sunday, then we’d come back on early Tuesday morning.

But then the school calendar changed. A sheet sent home to us and then subsequently mailed had stated that there was a mandatory senior meeting on Thursday, June 9. Caps, gowns, and honor cords were to be distributed. I was unaware of honor cords for the high school level. They are tokens “consisting of twisted cords with tassels on either end awarded to members of honor societies or for various academic and non-academic achievements, awards, or honors.” My daughter had ones for Honor Society and Art Honor Society.

An audible

But this meeting got moved to – you guessed it – Monday, June 13. So instead, my daughter came down to NYC after school that day, leaving at 3:30 pm to catch an Amtrak train scheduled to leave at 4:10. But the train was delayed and not expected to depart until 5:30, which would provide us zero time to get from Penn Station to Carnegie Hall.

Fortunately, my wife could switch our daughter to a 4:30 pm train, which arrived at 7. We took a taxi to the venue and got there by 7:30. Coincidentally, my sister Leslie was standing right where we got dropped off. My daughter and went to our VERY good seats, J1 and J3 just left of the center section.

The program

The concert had five ‘acts.” The first was the National Youth Festival Chorus, a mass choir comprised of seven choirs from seven states. The groups had been rehearsing individually but not together until two days earlier. They sang six songs, only one of which I knew, Children Will Listen by Sondheim. The c. 270 kids, roughly from 10 to 18, were very good, except for one kid near the end of a row who rocked back and forth with his thumbs in his pockets and distracted my daughter and me.

The Masterwork Festival Chorus included eight ensembles from six states, plus some stragglers, including my sister and five of her compatriots. The soloists were very good, especially the tenor (Anthony Webb) and the mezzo-soprano (Kathryn Leemhuis)/ They were accompanied by the New York City Chamber Orchestra. They too only sang together since Saturday. Following the Sunday rehearsal, they were given COVID tests. If they got called, they were positive and, therefore, out. At least seven folks couldn’t perform. My daughter recognized a couple of movements, notably Lacrymosa, probably from its use in TV and movies.

Wait, there’s more!

After the intermission, the Columbus International Children’s Choir performed. Their director, Tatiana Kats, must have perfect pitch, for she gave the notes without a pitch pipe or other instrument. They did four songs, including Ev’ry Time I Feel The Spirit, which I’ve sung since high school. It was the William Dawson arrangement but slightly altered. Why We Sing by Greg Gilpin had hand gestures that were quite touching.

The Trinity University Chamber Singers did three pieces, including If Ye Love Me by Tallis. A very good group. Both the Columbus and Trinity groups were part of the Mozart Requiem.

The final act was the Tara Winds Clarinet Choir, the first clarinet ensemble to play at this festival since 1935. I liked Two Songs without Words by Holst. I LOVED the Marcel Dupré: Variations sur un Noel.

Then my sister told us to go to the gift shop, so my daughter could pick out a souvenir, but the building closed at 11 pm. From there, across the street to Trattoria Dell’Arte, which was fabulous. Lots of hours oeuvres, enough to fill one up, and wonderful service.

We took a cab back to the apartment, where my sister gave my daughter some presents. They all went to sleep at some point, but I didn’t because my daughter and I needed to take a 7:15 train back to ALB, and I got anxious. We took an Uber to Penn Station, got food, and took the train home. I’m told I fell asleep for a time.

My wife picked us up and took my daughter to school for her last day, then took me home, where I slept for four hours.

Leslie: always drawn to performing

don’t know where, don’t know when

One of the attributes my family always knew about my sister Leslie was that she was always drawn to performing.

She had the opportunity to sing at Carnegie Hall as part of the Manhattan Concerts Productions’ Song of Renewal on Monday, June 13. She and about 240 other people were to sing the Mozart Requiem. (I love the Mozart Requiem. In fact, I could have joined them, but I declined because of my chronic rhinitis and other factors.) And there would be other choirs as well.

Leslie ended up staying at a Club Wyndham on East 45th Street, starting on Friday so she could be at the rehearsals over the weekend. I came down on Sunday night via Amtrak and the subway. The best thing about the resort is the great view from the 33rd-floor deck. One could see the Chrysler Building and the United Nations building only a few blocks away.

We had a nice conversation with a couple from Vancouver, BC, Canada. They have a daughter graduating from high school and two younger sons. They had only recently recovered from COVID, but they had mild cases.

Wet cushions

The next morning, we were back on the 33rd floor. It had rained overnight, and I had quickly ascertained that the cushions outdoors were too wet to sit on. But my sister needed to check this out herself; ah, the cushions were tied down. (By 11 a.m.. they had dried out.)

While sitting in the lounge inside, I mentioned to the two women sitting across from me that my sister on the deck would be singing at Carnegie Hall that night.

I had recommended a video that Kelly had linked to, a clip from the Amadeus movie that was wonderfully enhanced. I showed it to Leslie later, and she loved it.

This led to a conversation about the white cliffs of Dover, which Leslie had recently seen in person on a Dave Koz cruise that Rebecca Jade, her daughter, had performed on. This led to conversations about Vera Lynn (who had sung the song) to Johnny Cash (who had sung the Vera Lynn standard We’ll Meet Again.)

Somehow, we talked about the Green Family Singers and especially the song Hole In The Bucket. By this point, the husband of one of the women had joined us, and he recorded us performing a snippet of it. (We hadn’t had a chance to warm up the vocal cords. Just sayin’.) One of the women was so enamored by my sister that she gave her a big hug.

This is how I spent part of my time seeing my sister Leslie for the first time since the aftermath of her bicycle accident in the summer of 2018. This was a much more pleasant occasion.

BTW, this is Leslie’s XXth birthday. More on this narrative in three days.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Modest Mussorgsky

The Final JEOPARDY on April 29, 2022, was in the category MUSICAL INSPIRATIONS. “‘Tuileries’ and ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’ were 2 of the artworks that inspired this classical work completed in 1874.” Only the defending champion got it correct. What is Pictures at an Exhibition? Yes, I knew that one.

I have at least two versions of this piece. One on the NAXOS label notes that the suite was “a tribute to the versatile Viktor Hartmann,” who was an architect, among other things. THAT I was not aware of. Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839-1881) wrote the piece for piano in 1874. But it did not gain its prominence in the classical canon until Maurice Ravel’s 1922 adaptation for a full symphony.

As the Wikipedia page shows, it is a 10-movement piece, interrupted by various forms of a Promenade. The first Promenade is described from notes by Vladimir Stasov, an influential critic, who likely introduced Mussorgsky to Hartmann. “In this piece Mussorgsky depicts himself ‘roving through the exhibition, now leisurely, now briskly in order to come close to a picture that had attracted his attention, and at times sadly, thinking of his departed friend.'”

LISTEN

Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Chicago Symphony Orchestra live, conducted by Georg Solti
Ukrainian Radio Symphony Orchestra with some vocals, though they are mixed down so low that they are nearly inaudible
Sergui Celibidache – this is a slower take than many

The NAXOS recording I have is from the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. I could not find the entire piece online. But you can hear the stirring finale, The Great Gate of Kiev, which has always made me emotional.

The FIRST LP I owned of Pictures at an Exhibition, though, was by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, described as incorporating “elements of progressive rock, jazz, and folk music (1971).” The lyrics were by Greg Lake.

Note: my spellcheck wants to spell Kiev as Kyiv. I’m guessing that was a recent adaptation.

Ten songs from the sixties

something’s happening here

Someone asked me to list ten songs from the sixties – the 1960s, I assume – that epitomize the decade. This is a ridiculous question, of course, but that never stopped me before.

1. The Twist – Chubby Checker. #1 in both 1960 and 1962. It represents all those dance crazes.

2. Runaround Sue – Dion (1961). A performer from a group, The Belmonts, goes solo.

3. The End Of The World – Skeeter Davis (1963). It went Top Four on all four Billboard charts, the ONLY song of the decade to do so. There have been several country songs that have crossed over, from Roger Miller to Glen Campbell to Jeannie C. Riley’s Harper Valley PTA.

4. Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles (1964). I picked this specific song for two related reasons. This was the first single from their first movie, A Hard Day’s Night. And it was #1 when the group held the top five slots on the Billboard pop charts.

5. Stop! In The Name Of Love – The Supremes (1965). Their fifth straight #1 hit, showing the group was no fluke. Also, the hand gestures were a bit of Motown choreography. The song was written by Holland-Dozier-Holland, who penned many hits for them, The Four Tops, and other artists.

6. Mr. Tambourine Man – The Byrds (1965). A folk-rock classic that also represents the songwriting of Bob Dylan.

What you want

7. Respect – Aretha Franklin (1967). It is an empowerment anthem and a song that was much more successful than the original, in this case, from Otis Redding. Good Lovin’ (Young Rascals), Go Now (The Moody Blues) – heck, here’s a whole list of artists pulling this off.

8. For What It’s Worth – Buffalo Springfield (1967). It is almost a sixties cliche in that it appeared on many of the era’s compilations. Springfield and the Byrds helped birth CSNY, one of the first of the so-called supergroups.

9. Born To Be Wild – Steppenwolf (1968). There have been songs from movies that have appeared on the pop charts for a long time. But this is one of the first times someone took extant music and used it as the soundtrack, in this case, Easy Rider (1969). Subsequently, this has occurred in films from American Graffiti to American Hustle to every Tarantino flick.

10. Whole Lotta Love – Led Zeppelin (1969). The New Yardbirds morphed into a sound that helped define the NEXT decade.

But what about… Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, the Rolling Stones, the Ronettes, Cream? Perfectly good choices. Put them on YOUR list of ten.

Weirdest album from a mainstream artist?

Berry Gordy’s sister

My bud Greg Burgas asked his readers: What’s the weirdest album released by a mainstream artist? Off the top, I couldn’t think of any except from one pair of musicians.

Then I found this list of 35 albums. And I own several! The first, though, I heard of only weeks ago.

Frank Sinatra – Watertown (1970). A concept album that one of my news feeds just mentioned. It Was re-released in June 2022. He “was approached by “Big Girls Don’t Cry” writer Bob Gaudio to do a song cycle about a man whose wife left him with his kids.” It’s named for an upstate New York city; I probably should get it.

The Fireman – Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1994). “Without a drop of publicity, 1994 saw Paul McCartney quietly releasing his ambient techno album.” To me, it sounds “at worst needlessly repetitive.”

Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (1979). This has some good songs, actually, such as Send One Your Love, but also a lot of tedious “synthesizer experimentation.” It was “a detour so far from the commercial norm that it risked alienating scores of unadventurous listeners.”

Yoko Ono/John Lennon – Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968). I wasn’t even going to consider it because I don’t think of Yoko as a “mainstream artist,” even though I own a few of her solo albums. I haven’t listened to Two Virgins in decades. Side one of their Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions (1969) is unlistenable, but side two is conversational, a bit melancholy, and documents Yoko’s miscarriage. Wedding Album (1970) has Yoko yelling JOHN, and John yelling YOKO for twenty minutes; side two is a dialogue about bed-ins and the like.

Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming (1979). Musically interesting but lyrically theologically lazy.

Starkey

Ringo Starr – Beaucoups of Blues (1970). I LIKE this album quite a bit. “Ringo hunkered down in Nashville, rounded up the city’s top session players, and recorded this love letter to Music City that’s as authentic as the most classic George Jones platter… Beaucoups of Blues remains Starr’s most thoroughly enjoyable, though misunderstood, solo outing.” Agreed. Title song.

Paul McCartney – McCartney II (1980). Why is this album even on the list?

The Who – The Who Sell Out (1967). “Arguably the Who’s greatest album… The oddness [comes] from the fact that these are book-ended by radio jingles and commercials.” SpongeBob SquarePants used this model for an album. Tattoo.

Bob Dylan – Self Portrait (1970). As mentioned, I bought this for my high school girlfriend. I specifically recall a strange version of Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer. I always wondered if it was in response to the duo’s A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission). “At the end of the 1966 recording Simon says, ‘Folk-rock,’ and, after an audible noise, ‘I’ve lost my harmonica, Albert.’ This presumably refers to Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman.”

What now?

Neil Young – Trans (1983). “He ticked off “his new label by releasing a vocoder-heavy synth-rock album. He followed it up with a rockabilly disc, and was sued shortly thereafter.” I like Trans, and especially Mr. Soul.

The Clash – Sandinista! (1980). “The Only Band That Mattered follow-up London Calling with a three-LP set filled with reggae, hip-hop, and pop experiments sprawled all over the place.” I bought this album right away and listened to it a lot. Police On My Back.

Joni Mitchell – Mingus (1979). I didn’t appreciate the dialogue as much as the music.

Marvin Gaye – Here, My Dear (1978). “Quite possibly the only album that nearly launched an invasion of privacy lawsuit.” A divorce album re: him and Anna Gordy, Berry Gordy’s older sister. Indulgent but oddly interesting. When Did You Stop Loving Me, When I Stop Loving You?

Devo – E-Z Listening Disc (1987) [Compilation]. Someone from Rykodisc sent this to me when I was working at FantaCo. I think it’s a hoot. Jocko Homo.

The one I think is most “out there” is probably the Fireman or maybe Joni.