In last night's dream, Yannick Nezet-Seguin was a friend of mine. We went to the Camden Aquarium with other friends who I used to hang out with when I was working on my master's degree in Music Theory in the 1980s. (I'm not sure that the Camden Aquarium was there yet, but that's not important.) Nezet-Seguin would have been about ten years old then, living in Montreal, and there's little chance I would have let him drive my friends and me through Philadelphia and over the Ben Franklin Bridge to Camden's Aquarium. This stuff happens in dreams and fiction, though, and it's fun to think about. We had a great time at the Aquarium, us four.
Yannick Nezet Seguin - Orquesta Filarmónica de Rotterdam,
photo by Quincena Musical
The truth is, he's been on my mind a lot since he took over as Music Director of my beloved Philadelphia Orchestra in 2012. Riccardo Muti was the director when I was in school then, and he was a hero, too. (I was behind him in line at the Barnes & Noble once and noticed his stack of CDs before I noticed who he was.)
In-between, there were other directors, no less fantastic, I'm sure, but they had the misfortune to populate that post when I had neither the time or the money to visit the orchestra much. Then came Yannick, and he breathed energy and vitality into the orchestra without sacrificing artistry. He's charismatic on the podium and well-known on social media.
I discovered that the orchestra has a Cyber Monday sale (the Monday after American Thanksgiving) where fans can buy tickets at a good price. I bought three sets of tickets for the three Vienna concerts in January 2016 and invited friends to attend. I was thrilled to revisit these Viennese masters I had been studying and writing about since my two trips to Vienna this summer. (Read my short blog post about Vienna's surprises here.) We heard Strauss, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Bruckner, Schumann, Brahms, at these concerts, plus a more recent composer I'd never heard of: HK Gruber.
HK Gruber was born in Vienna, was educated at the music academy there, and lives there now. In the program notes for this concert (1/16/16), Paul Griffiths describes Gruber as an "early postmodern transgressive." Rather than trying to translate that label, I'll describe him as a guy who has a lot of fun with his music and writes some interesting, energetic, and compelling stuff. You can meet him in this video:
Also from Griffiths's program notes, we learn that Gruber's first big-time composition was named Frankenstein!!, and included a part for Gruber himself as narrator in a scary style. That was 1978.
He composed the piece we heard in 1981 (Charivari) when he was obsessed with Johann Strauss Jr.'s "Perpetuum mobile" polka. Here's Herbert von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic performing that Strauss piece:
Gruber's piece is a deconstruction of the Strauss polka, and the listener can hear some of the original piece in the newer one. The name Charivari is taken from the title of a French satirical journal from the 1800s and means to bang on pots and generally make noise to annoy people (such as newlyweds). The audience at our concert demanded an encore, so Yannick and his crew performed the Strauss "Perpetuum mobile" polka. We got to hear where the newer piece came from. The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra made this recording in 2007:
I really like the idea of programming a selection of music from the same place in a concert or concerts like this. Next year, Yannick Nezet-Seguin plans to take us to PARIS!
Verizon Hall exterior under the Kimmel Center dome
The reason I chose Temple University for both undergraduate and graduate Music Theory study was that I wanted to be in a big city with a big orchestra, a big opera company, a big ballet company, and a big amount of chamber ensembles and other music opportunities. By 'big' I mean well-respected and frequently offering performances. Back when I was in college and graduate school,
Inside the Academy of Music
most of these performances happened in the stately Academy of Music, built with opera in mind in 1857. Riccardo Muti conducted most of the time. Back in my heyday, there was talk of a future venue designed for the city's world-class orchestra, but I finished school and moved away before groundbreaking. That new venue turned out to be Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center, a little over a block south from the venerable Academy, and approximately an hour's automobile or train ride from my current dwelling. While the Academy seats 2900 listeners, Verizon Hall seats a mere 2400 on more comfortable red mohair seats.
"It's only an hour away," I thought, as I examined the Orchestra's schedule of concerts. I was in a giving (to myself) mood and selected an early November program devoted to Mahler's Second Symphony, "The Resurrection," and a later November program which featured the Orchestra's first-chair clarinetist, Ricardo Morales. The concerts were fantastic as I expected they'd be, but the extra stuff before and after were unexpected delights.
CONCERT #1: THE MAHLER
I like getting lost in a Mahler symphony, but the real reason
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
I selected this concert was to watch the relatively new conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra conduct the giant piece. I hadn't seen Yannick Nezet-Seguin conduct yet, but I've been impressed with his social media presence and his outreach to the musically-interested community. He has a superstar reputation and held that orchestra in the palm of his hand throughout the over-eighty minute work.
This symphony first performed in 1894 is known as "The Resurrection" because it's the kind of work that builds and builds to a humongous climax as the huge orchestra and choir (the Westminster Choir College choir from Princeton) works out the melodies and motives and transforms them into a giant new sound. One of the delights of this afternoon was the pre-concert talk where I learned a bit about The Resurrection. There's no indication on the score, but Mahler described the 'program' or story in general terms. The listener should imagine themselves standing at the grave of a beloved deceased person and let the music of the first movement represent their grief. The second, third, and fourth movements are intermezzi in which the mourner reminisces on the deceased's life. Then in the fifth movement, the listener is graveside again, experiencing the pain of loss along with a glimpse of optimism that comes with thoughts of the last judgment and resurrection. (I struggle with words to describe this profound piece; the music says so much more.) It's during the fifth movement the the giant choir sneaks in, at first barely perceptible, but ultimately strong at the conclusion.
After the meal of Mahler, there was desert! three of the orchestra's cello players came back on stage to play some chamber music. Yannick Nezet-Seguin himself (in street clothes now) introduced this "Postlude,"Leopold Mozart's Frosch-Parthia in C major and the Beethoven Trio in C major, Op. 87, both works arranged for three cellos.
After many years of playing the clarinet in school, college, graduate school, and in various ensembles afterwards, the clarinet seems to me my own voice. Back in the days when the orchestra performed in the Academy of Music, Anthony Gigliotti was the first-chair clarinettist that everyone went to hear and schlepped to Philadelphia to study with. Since 2003 that chair is held by Ricardo Morales, who, before his arrival in Philadelphia, was first-chair with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. (A career to envy!) Morales dazzled us with two clarinet works, the Debussy Rhapsody No. 1, for Clarinet and Orchestra and the Rossini Introduction, Theme, and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra, two pieces that I've studied and on my best day might have played at one-eighth the speed. Take a look at the photo at the left of Morales with his clarinets (orchestral clarinetists carry two, one in A and one in Bb). One of them is brown. This is unusual as most clarinets since the beginning of time are black as licorice and made from grenadilla wood or African mpingo. This orangey-brown wood is called cocobolo and comes from Central America. I want one. Here's a sample of a rehearsal of the Debussy piece with this very soloist:
The orchestra, under the baton of guest conductor Juanjo Mena, also played Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol (with all its fiery clarinet licks) and the Tchaikovsky Symphony #5. And there was desert after this: four orchestra members enchanted us with the Ravel String Quartet.
THE KIMMEL CENTER TOUR
A soft-spoken veteran usher named Bill walked a gang of us through the Kimmel Center: Verizon Hall, the Perelman Theater, and the mysterious Roof Garden. Verizon Hall is where the Philadelphia Orchestra concerts happen along with other events including the venerable Philadelphia Speaker Series I also attend. The spectacular mahogany interior of this hall is shaped like a cello to enhance the sound, and (I didn't know this until the tour), is protected from subway noise by twenty-four-inch blocks of rubber under the building. The corridors we walk through to get into the hall also provide insulation from noise. Centered behind the stage is the Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ with its 7,000 pipes. It is the largest concert hall organ in the United States.
Verizon Hall's stage set up for the Philadelphia Orchestra
The Perelman Theater was created for smaller performances and features a rotating turntable stage that I didn't know about. The seats on the floor (orchestra level) actually fold down and slide under the stage in order to permit even more varieties of events. The unexpected concrete floors add to the live acoustics of this hall.
Inside the Perelman Theater
And then there is the Roof Garden. I'd never seen this space, but I had heard that after only a few years it was necessary to renovate it. The story is it was meant to be a garden with trees and plants, but it was too hot to use in the warmer months. Under that glass dome temperatures rose to 130 degrees! So, the space was re-thunk and the Roof garden got its own roof and air-conditioning system and now accommodates parties, weddings, concerts, meetings, and other events that do not require oppressive tropical heat.
The Kimmel Center's cool Roof Garden space (looking north)
The Roof Garden again, looking west
Looking south at Broad Street (the Avenue of the Arts) from the Roof Garden
I'm pleased that I splurged these two orchestra concerts and their extras. All too often I get hung up on how things used to be back in the glorious college days and why do they have to change, EVER? I feel content now that Yannick Nezet-Seguin has replaced Muti, the Kimmel Center has replaced the Academy of Music, and Ricardo Morales has replaced Gigliotti. I just had to get to know them!
I had a two-part dream last night. In the first part, I was at a club listening to an amazing jazz trumpet player improvise a complex solo in front of a big band. The solo became a duet with one of the trumpeters in the band, and their two lines were so intertwined I couldn't figure out who was playing what. I can match that scene up somewhat with my college years (1980s) when my friend Bob and I used to save our pennies to go hear legends of jazz play at the Chestnut Cabaret in Philadelphia. Bob was a Jazz major at Temple University (trombone), and I was a Music Theory major (clarinet), and our love of jazz and all kinds of music inspired many concert-going adventures. We'd drive over to the Chestnut Cabaret on 38th Street in his green Dodge Dart (or was it a Plymouth?) and hear all the greats play. Bob and I were teetotalers and would nurse our Cokes for an entire evening of jazz. Back then I drank the hard stuff with sugar in it, but soon after changed to Diet Coke.
A guy named Joe Sudler ran the house band, a big band that would back up the artists if they didn't bring their own band. Usually a big band is made up of five trumpets, five trombones, five saxophones (two alto, two tenor, one baritone who double on flutes and clarinets) and a rhythm section (piano, guitar, bass, drums). Back in the 1980s, a coworker of mine from the Windsor Shirt Company at 16th and Walnut used to play the trombone for Sudler and then mesmerize me with stories of the gigging jazz musician's life.
As for trumpet soloists at the Cabaret, I remember only Clark Terry. I didn't know of him before, but I was impressed by his playing that night. He is best-known for playing with Duke Ellington's and Count Basie's bands, and for playing Bebop style which Bob and I liked so much. Terry played the flugelhorn, too, as seen in this video from that era when he appeared on the Tonight Show with that great big band:
In my dream the trumpeters did not have recognizable faces, but this could be because I was thinking of Clark Terry and I didn't know of him back then.
In the second part of the dream, I was in an old record store (we still bought vinyl LPs then) which was going out of business. I mentioned the concert I had attended to the guys behind the counter and we enjoyed a nice discussion until they asked me who played the first part and who the second in that solo/duet I mentioned above. I had to admit to them that I couldn't tell, and I was embarrassed.
The tiny bridge is to the left
The record store in the dream was probably 3rd Street Jazz & Rock, a tiny shop near Benjamin Franklin's Olde City Philadelphia that Bob and I went to a few times. That's where I got my copy of Richie Cole's "Trenton Makes the World Takes" album with Richie playing his alto saxophone in front of that Trenton bridge on the cover. Richie Cole was my favorite saxophone player ever since I heard him play in 1980 at the college then-known as Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey). He appeared as a guest soloist with the college's jazz band and blew me away with his Bebop style. Bob and I probably heard him play at the Chestnut Cabaret, but we heard him many times in Trenton and Philadelphia, nursing our cokes and enjoying his energetic playing. He is from the Trenton area but now lives in California or Colorado or some place far. He still comes east for gigs, and I just found out one of my co-workers plays in Richie's east coast band! This part of the dream was probably inspired by that conversation, and talking about hearing him play at Trenton State and buying that precious album, the first with Richie as a leader. Here's one of my favorite tunes that appears on that album...
Bebop, if you are wondering is a style of jazz made popular in the 1940s by another trumpeter, Dizzy Gillespie, and another alto saxophonist, Charlie "Bird" Parker. It's a less dance-able style than Swing which came before it. The melodies are fast complex, and unpredictable. The name 'Bebop' probably comes from 'scat', nonsense syllables that jazz vocalists sang instead of words, usually making them up on the spot. (Think of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong!). You've heard Bebop. Here's some quintessential Dizzy Bebop for you (we saw him, too, back then, but at the Academy of Music, I think):
Dreams are funny, aren't they? These are cherished memories, but it took a chance conversation about Richie Cole for the memories of the Chestnut Cabaret, Bebop, Clark Terry to bubble up. I wonder if Bob thinks about those days ever...
Cape May's Gazebo, sight of a recent String Band concert
The Gazebo on a summer evening is a postcard scene. There's a band presenting a concert, little kids dancing to the music, foot-tapping older folks on park benches and beach chairs, and a few in-between ages convinced the scene is too cute to be cool. I don't worry about 'cool' anymore. I show up at three or four of these free concerts each summer with my pink-and-yellow folding chair, ready to appreciate the music, the work that went into it, and the dedication of the musicians offering the experience. Bless them.
This night, it was the Cape May County String Band's turn to entertain us. I wondered if they would Mummer-strut around the Gazebo as the string bands do on New Year's Day on Philadelphia's Broad Street. These musicians did not. They sat still in red Hawaiian shirts playing Mummer favorites like "Baby Face," "Bill Bailey," "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," and "When the Saints Go Marching In." Each tune followed the same model: the musicians played a couple of verses, then sang one over a basic rhythm section, and then played the last. This is how I was able to discover that the vaguely unfamiliar tune was "Margie." Wow--a string band playing "Margie" in Cape may's Gazebo was like a scene from the movie of my life.
I have been fond of string bands since college in Philadelphia. (Click here to read about the 2012 Mummers on my other blog.) Here's what I do: early on New Year's Day, I pick a spot on Broad Street near the intersection of locust or Spruce, and work my way through the crowd to the barriers to get a clear camera shot. (I try to ignore the beer-stink and the queasy stomach it inspires.) Here come the string bands, usually around noon at this intersection, in their feathers, sequins, and hats.
Saxophone-playing robots in Philadelphia
That distinctive sound is created by the saxophones, banjos, and glockenspiels. There are other instruments, but the per capita populations of saxophones and banjos is higher here than any other kind of band. This is one of the few places you're likely to spot the giant (and heavy) bass saxophone, ironically marching up Broad Street in January.
Look! That's a bass sax on the left! (On Philadelphia's Broad Street in January)
There are also string basses and violins strutting up Broad Street.
String-bass-plucking bears on Broad Street
Here's what you'll see if you go: the bands are required to perform their show at various spots along Broad Street, the Locust/Spruce block being one of these performance locations. The show will have a theme like Candyland, the Wild West, or gangsters, and non-musician members will act out a story in their garish sequined and feathered costumes.
Banjos, accordions, fiddles, sequins, and feathers (Philadelphia)
The captain wears the fanciest costume of all, and will give the
musicians, dancers, and actors signals and lead them up the parade
route. It's all very exciting.
One of our Philadelphia captains
Ultimately, the performers arrive a Broad and Market Streets where their show will be judged. It used to end here and the string bands would head to Second Street in South Philadelphia to celebrate, but now they perform one more show at the Pennsylvania Convention Center for paying customers in the enormous, climate-controlled arena. Prizes for string bands and the other Mummer groups (Comics, Wench Brigades, Fancies, and Fancy Brigades) are announced later in the day.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for banjo-playing ice-cream! (in Philadelphia)
That's the Mummer tradition, but there was no Mummer Parade in Cape May in August. The Hawaiian-shirt-clad musicians of the Cape May County String Band treated us to over an hour of that distinctive Mummer sound. The Mummer fans among us tapped into the memories we carry with us while novices heard old favorite tunes with a new flavor and style. There was some Mummer-strutting, a lone Mummer in red sequins and gold lame strutted around the assembled crowd with a Mummbrella, coaxing audience members to dance and strut. It was a postcard-worthy scene!
It's hard to get a clear picture of a strutting Mummer! (in Cape May)
