Dances: After You, The Green Table, Partita 2

Thanks to our friend Santa (who recommended it), we went to see a program by the American Ballet Theater.  I had always associated the ABT with ballet stars and Swan Lakes, but this program was completely different.  It began with a newly commissioned work by Mark Morris entitled "After You", set to Hummel's "Septet".   This was one of Morris's very music oriented works, and was delightful to watch and hear.  As always, Morris works very closely with the music in ways which are both very obvious and not so obvious.   It was not seemingly a profound work, with its rather bland appearance, but, at the end, you want to see it again.  I was also fascinated by Hummel's music, which also seems to have more going on than what appears on the surface.  A critic called the piece an "anti-ballet", I suppose meaning that it rejects many of the typical conventions of classical ballet (Virtuosity, male-female partnering, etc.), but for me, since I don't normally experience these conventions, the idea means nothing.   It's a Mark Morris piece!
Quotes from Mark Morris:

Notes to his dancers:  “ ‘Dazzling.’ ‘Breathtaking.’ You don’t have to do those slogans so it looks like the ABT calendar,” he said. “I want to know that there is a human being doing it.”

“I want it to be enjoyable. It’s a choreo-musical experience, and that’s it.”

Note that the men and the women have the same costumes:

There was also a pair of pieces dating from the 60's called "Monotones" by Frederick Ashton, set to various orchestrations of Satie's piano music.  (The Satie pieces were also joined together to make a continuous score.)  The dance was a slow and mesmerizing experience; Ashton was supposedly inspired by the first images of astronauts floating in space in the 1960's.  The movement did have a wonderful floating quality to it, and the Satie with its simple and non-developmental quality served this idea very well.

The highlight, though, was Kurt Jooss's "The Green Table", an antiwar ballet dating from 1932, set to music composed specifically for the ballet by Fritz Cohen (a two piano score).  Interestingly, the dance was inspired by the same frieze in Lubeck that inspired the Thomas Ades "Totentanz" that we heard last spring.   It is a narrative ballet, with a dancer playing "Death".  Since I know so little of dance history, the piece was a revelation;  the movements in what has been called an expressionist style were striking, especially those of Death and those of the women who are made to suffer the consequences of mankind's obsession with war.  Some of the women's gestures reminded me of expressionist paintings or Schiele drawings.  You really feel the impact of the Death character, who sometimes suddenly appears out of darkness to grab his victims. The piece begins and ends with opposing groups of diplomats or one percent types  gesturing at the green table with great ridiculousness.  The music was excellent as well.  At times it evoked the contemporaneous silent film scores, and was quite dissonant when it needed to be.

Death:

The green table:

We also saw (again thanks to Santa!) a piece entitled "Partita 2" by Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker.    The piece begins with a solo violinist walking on a bare stage.   The lights go completely out, the theater is in absolute darkness, and the violinist begins to play Bach's Partita #2 for violin solo.   This goes on for quite a while, and was a remarkable experience just by itself.  I often close my eyes when I listen to music; in this case, the closing was done for me.   For a dance show, this is a radical gesture.  After about 15 - 20 minutes of the partita, the violinist stops in the middle of a movement and walks off stage.  The light gradually emerges, and the two dancers, Keersmaeker and her co-creator, Boris Charmatz, begin dancing in total silence.  Though of course you still have the music of Bach in your head.   After an equally long stretch of dance in silence, the violinist re-enters the stage, and then we have music and dance together.   The violinist starts the Bach all over again, and then we gradually see some parts of the choreography that we have already seen recur, only this time with the music.  The choreography itself is quite minimal, and not dramatic in any conventional sense.  Lots of movement in circles around the stage, and many small gestures.  But to my eyes (and ears), it was mesmerizing; Keersmaeker is an extraordinary dancer.    Vera and Santa were less impressed.   The piece as a whole seems to be very much about structure, and also about how we hear and see Bach's music. (Somewhere in an interview Keersmaeker or Charmatz commented about the fact that no one has ever made a great piece in choreographing to Bach's music, forgetting Balanchine's "Concerto Barocco")    I found the whole experience to be fascinating, and would happily go and hear and see it again.   Though I must confess that I did not like the violinist's style of playing Bach, especially in the opening section.  It was of the romantic, tempo shifting style; with exaggerated slowing down and speeding up.   Bach purists would have shuddered.  (The movements in the Bach are each titled with dance forms, not that Bach expected anyone to dance to them.)  Curiously, though, I didn't mind the same style of performance when it occurred with the dance.

Musical Events

We heard Verdi's "Otello" done at the Met, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin  conducting.  It was superb.  The opera itself is far more modern and adventurous than I remembered (I last heard it probably 30 years ago).  I kept hearing echoes of Wagner, and the variety of instrumental textures and contrasts is extraordinary.  Credit also goes to Boito, whose libretto is a model of dramatic concision.   Needless to say, the orchestra and conducting were exemplary, and the singers excellent.  In short, this is what the Met can do so well, and the end result was very moving.

We heard the amazing Eric Comstock at Cafe Noctambulo in the East Village.   He ranges freely and widely through the Great American Songbook, and never ceases to amaze me with the musical treasures he unearths, and his depth of knowledge about this repertoire.  When someone asked for Rogers and Hart's "Blue Moon", he spontaneously gave us three brief renditions of earlier versions of the song which were deemed "uncommercial" by their publishers (but copyrighted nonetheless).   The publisher wanted a hit; so they complied. The result was "Blue Moon", which was a hit and which Rogers and Hart apparently hated.   (My own acquaintance with the song dates from the doo-wop version by the Marcels in 1961.)
Comstock is both a wonderful vocalist and an exciting pianist, and on this occasion he was joined by the great Barbara Fasano, who sang several beautiful songs with her amazing voice.
While I am appalling ignorant of most of the Great American Songbook, the more I hear of this repertoire, the more I have come to admire the wonderful combination of sophisticated harmony and lyrics, most of these songs make current American popular songs sound simplistic and boring (sorry about that, friends of contemporary pop music).
I especially enjoy the wonderful wit with which the classic songwriters combined words and music.

We also made a return visit to the Mingus Big Band (with Ada and Andrew); the band also never ceases to amaze me with the different corners of the Mingus repertoire they present at their Monday night gigs.   There are always a few pieces that I have never heard before; some of them extremely complex musically. The band, as always, played with spirited commitment, ) and pianist Helen Sung is a special delight to hear.  (In fact, the rhythm ensemble of drums, piano and bass is one of the great strengths of the ensemble, holding things together as the music does its crazy Mingus tempo shifts.) We are very lucky to be able to hear them.

I also heard the NY Philharmonic play Brahms, as conducted by Semyon Bychkov.    (Vera went to hear the Boston Symphony perform "Elektra"; with my Strauss allergy, it was not for me.)  Brahms is the second hardest working man in show business (and shares the same initials with late hardest working man).  Seriously, I mean that nothing in Brahms is filler or routine; every tune has its elaborate and often rhythmically opposite accompaniment. (This is a detraction for some).  I can happily go through long stretches of Brahms and listen only to the contrapuntal figures accompanying the main themes.   (OK, that's a bit perverse...and not really true)  Thus I like my Brahms performances with maximum clarity (and that is something you can only really hear in a live performance).  I get annoyed when conductors try to whip up some sort of impulsive frenzy; Brahms doesn't need it.  This concert, featuring the Double Concerto and the First Symphony, was mostly very clear, with some occasional shakiness in the ensemble.  In this performance I heard the some of the rhythmic aspects of Brahms music that were later to emerge in Schoenberg's music. I never get tired of Brahms.    At the end of the concert, there was the (requisite) standing ovation for the conductor and orchestra.  I wanted to do a standing ovation for Brahms. Why should all the others get the credit?  He wrote the damn thing!


I heard a concert by the Keleman String Quartet at Weill Recital Hall, with Haydn's Op. 76, no.2, Bartok #56, and Kurtag's "Moment Musical"   A perfect program, and I was totally impressed with the ensemble virtuosity of this young Hungarian group.   I have heard so many extraordinary string quartets lately; the level of musicianship seems to be at such a high standard.  Clearly, if you want to be a successful string quartet in today's world, you really have to work and practice together as an ensemble.  The Haydn, Bartok and Kurtag pieces resonated very nicely with one another, and I came away wanting to go hear all the Bartok quartets again.

Cross-country Ride in the Car

Somehow I had the idea that, rather than put our dog Maggie on the plane to New York, it would be fun to drive from Vancouver to New York.  When Ada and Andrew expressed interest in the coming with me, the idea became a reality.   I have done it a number of times before, the first time when I was 20 years old.  I had dropped out of college (this was the year of the first draft lottery, and my high number meant I wouldn't be sent to Vietnam), and I loaded my Fender Rhodes electric piano and my Farfisa mini compact organ into my VW bug, with the idea that I would go live in San Francisco and play in a rock band.  (The sixties!)  At the last minute, my sister Rebecca (who had just graduated from high school) decided to come with me.  She came for the ride, and flew back East from San Francisco a few days after we arrived.   I have vivid memories of the trip, our first glimpse of the vast spaces of America between the coast.  We camped on the banks of both the Missouri River and the Mississippi River, in the Black Hills and in Yellowstone, and on the banks of Great Salt Lake.  Neither one of us had ever been further west than Pennsylvania (though we had been on family trips all through Europe).

So, five days after my returning from Siena, Ada, Andrew, Maggie and myself were off in the car.  (Vera wanted no part of this and was happily ensconced in New York.)   Maggie, who loves to ride in the car, spent most of the trip in her co-pilot position.

The main point of the trip is to see the landscape of the west.  We began by going through the North Cascades National Park:

Our first glimpse:

Fall colors amongst the evergreens:

After passing through the mountains, you get to the dry part of Washington State, a beautiful golden landscape, threaded by rivers (and electric transmission wires).

The next day, we drove through Idaho and Montana, on our way to Yellowstone National Park.
The copper mining town of Butte:

Our chief interest in Yellowstone was all the thermal features: geysers, mud pots, etc.  Although we did see some beautiful waterfalls and rocks

It was cold in Yellowstone the morning we were there (below freezing) and perhaps that had something to do with all the fog which shrouded the thermal features.  It made for a mysterious grey landscape, and the colorful features of the mud pots were thus muted.   But still there was an extraordinary variety of colors and textures in the landscape.

It is a strange landscape, where things are bubbling, hissing and you feel a closeness to the inner workings of the earth's geology.

More... (too much?)

We drove by Yellowstone Lake:

On the shores, more geyser activity:

Exiting Yellowstone, we drove across Wyoming.  The road between Yellowstone and the next mountain range, the Bighorn mountains, is full of beautiful rock formations.   The Bighorns themselves are as beautiful as other, more famous mountain ranges; they have a large, high elevation plateau which was so enticing we wanted to stay the night, but, alas, we needed to push on to Sheridan, Wyoming, which was not so beautiful.
More rocks and colors:

The Medici stone workers might have been happy to find this mountain:

A lot of the views above are not part of any national park or forest, but simply part of the whole landscape of the west.

The sights on this ride anticipated our next destination, the Badlands.  Again nature has arranged a feast of colors and shapes, courtesy of erosion, fossils, and minerals.   It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the park was relatively deserted.  Sometimes we were the only ones at a viewpoint.

Again, more rock pictures than you need; I really liked the yellow and reddish rocks.

After the Badlands, the rest of the trip was certainly less interesting.  South Dakota and southern Minnesota go on endlessly, being mostly flat with corn.  Wisconsin provides more picturesque forests and farms before Indiana and Ohio take over with renewed flatness.   I80 through Pennsylvania showed us lots of forested fall color, along with Exit 224 for Danville, boyhood home of the notable American musicologist David Metzer.   Alas, we had no time to stop, and before long we were crossing the George Washington Bridge in time to land in a huge traffic jam in New York City.   It was indeed a welcome sight when we pulled up in front of our building after 3,065 miles of driving.


One of the fun parts of a cross-country trip  (for us coastal types) is the various glimpses of Americana along the way.   For example, in Clinton, Montana we saw signs for an upcoming "Testicle Festival".  What can this be?   Something to do with football?   No, it's a festival that features copious consumption of bull testicles (and beer, apparently).
Speaking of things culinary, we stopped for the night in the town of Murdo, South Dakota, where our only dining option in a place that had windows was a pizza place that featured their special crust with cinnamon on it.  Yes, a cinnamon flavored crust for your pizza with pepperoni, sausage, etc.   The piece de resistance, though, was that the pizza was served along with a container of sugary icing to add to the crust.
We also saw Old Faithful geyser erupt in Yellowstone park.  Part of the fun was watching the crowd.  (The geyser itself was fairly wimpy in the eruption we saw; its main virtue being its regularity.)   I saw a very well dressed woman in a leopard skin print dress and a stylish black hat take numerous selfies with the geyser in the background.   We stopped in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, where a huge resort has been built around the natural phenomenon of the sandstone erosion formations on the river.  The town itself is filled with man-made attractions of every kind, all designed to amuse the American family on vacation.  One was "3D Blacklight Minigolf".   But I am wondering how it would be to play minigolf in two dimensions.  At least my putts would go straight .


We did see some wonderful wildlife along the way.  In Yellowstone we had a close encounter with some bison beside the car.   Maggie growled at the bison.
Photo by Andrew:

We also saw a grizzly bear (from a distance!), big horn sheep, and, in the Badlands, a huge field of prairie dogs that was a delight to watch as they made sounds and popped up and down and ran around.   (Maggie was overexcited, and had to be left in the car.  They are prey for her.)  Also in the Badlands, we were about to walk on a short boardwalk to a viewpoint when two guys told us they had just seen a rattlesnake on the boardwalk.  Some of us went back to the car.
And there was this peculiar species of mountain goat in the Badlands: