Technically challenged as I often am by computers, I am very happy to have figured out how to post these recent reviews, of The Light that is Felt, my all Ives disc with pianist Donald Berman, and some contributions I made to Americans In Rome, a 4 CD set, celebrating American composers who were recipients of the Rome Prize.

The Wire, February 2009, The Light that is Felt – CD Review

Diverdi, February 2009, The Light That is Felt – CD Review

Gramophone, March 2009 – Americans in Rome CD Review

Fanfare, March/April The Light That is Felt – CD Review

Since last I wrote:  aprx. 14,700 miles.

In Boston:  Andrew Imbrie’s Rotheke Songs, James Yannatos Haiku Settings.
Weather report:  Extremely cold.
Text report:  Modernist language of Imbrie embraces Roethke texts in sensual, jazzy way.  It is a particular language, it doesn’t preen and hop around, but when it stretches out, it is so beautiful.

In San Francisco:  Carter and Messaien at my old alma mater.
Weather report: Foggy and cool, like it should be.
Highlights:  Seeing so many old friends.  If you ever read this, thank you, thank you, thank you.

In New York:  Our lovely Chance Encounter gang united again.  Thank you, Lisa and you lovely Knights!
Weather report:  Not as bad as it could be in February.
Special mention:  A shoutout to Lance for more Spam recipes.  I will post the photos, God willing, one of these days.

Back in New York: Wandering through a completely new language, and finding the landmarks and my way.
Weather report:  The greens of the daffodils are up.  Spring is teasing us again.  I’m glad it still wants to.

There’s no denying it – De Stijl is fantastic!  Having often sung the second act of De Materie – that long gorgeous soprano solo to the words of a Dutch mystic – I never had the chance to really immerse myself in that boogie-woogie toe tapping, saxophone crazy, third movement.  No matter how hot the music gets, there is still that incredible sense of proportion, line and distance, so important in Andriessen’s music.  It was a great time – and kudos to Liam Viney, who played a mean boogie-woogie piano way up in the stratosphere of Disney Hall – amazing!

I see that crazy intersection of lines and planes all over downtown LA.  Sometimes I can’t even believe this architecture has mass; it just looks like intersecting lines exploding into space: glassy, weightless, full of light.

I have enjoyed two lovely concerts with the beautiful Nieuw Ensemble, who play Carter’s music brilliantly.  And since I was finished after the first half, got a chance to hear the Oboe Quartet and Luimen – fantastic music.  Luimen was written for the Nieuw Ensemble; it has so much fantasy in it, with its particular (should we say “spicy”?) instrumentation.  Here’s an interesting fact:  both concerts were broadcast live on the radio, the first in Holland and the second by the WDR in Germany.  I am wondering if the Carter celebration in Carnegie was broadcast live; perhaps I would be pleasantly surprised (shocked) to know that it was….

Another postcard:  restaurant recommendations in Amsterdam.   We discovered Orontes (and apparently many others have, too, ) wonderfully simple, fresh mediterranean cuisine, with charcoal grilled fish worthy of anywhere in the world.  They prepare a version of babaganoush which I’ve never encounted before, with grilled eggplant, spices, very little tomato (if any) and dressed with pomegranate oil.  This is something not to be missed; texture of a thick balsamic vinegar, but with the citrussy zip that the fruit possesses.   The second is an old standby, Cilubang, an Indonesian restaurant in the Jordaan, which seems to get better over the years.

Even this age of financial anxiety and severe cutbacks, Amsterdam has an incredible – and enviable – cultural life.  People often say, you don’t go to Holland for the weather, and that’s true – but the inner weather is pretty spectacular.

This week, I’m in Amsterdam to be  part of worldwide concerts celebrating Elliott Carter’s 100th birthday.   I’m joining the wonderful Nieuw Ensemble for Tempo e Tempi,  – a beautiful song cycle for soprano and small ensemble.   The concert is full of Carter’s music and  full of musical tributes, written for him.  I have had the good fortune to work with Mr. Carter – I am so old fashioned that I can never bring myself to call someone I respect so much by his first name – since the 1990’s.   Last year around this  time,  we were singing happy birthday to him at the end of our last performance of his opera, “What Next?”, at Miller Theater in New York.

Time and times…it seems true that we perceive life as moving with increased velocity with each passing year.  Strangely, music great complexity seems to slow down.  Not the tempo, but the pace – it seems unhurried; lines which once were difficult to hear  seem luminous, glowing, intertwined not like pieces of mesh wire, but more like a cluster of vines, some thicker, some thinner, but all growing and reaching for light and space.

I hear this in Tempo e Tempi.  The poems could be understood as many backward glances, laced with a good deal of regret; poems that reflect the small devastating changes of age.  That is the way I used to understand these poems, and how I heard the songs.   Now I hear  them differently.  They seem to be small moments of revealed truth,  alternatively poignant, life-affirming and life-loving, which burst forth, fully formed within these extravagant instrumental textures, and then subside.  There are examples in every measure, in every song.

And the miracle of the last song,  “Secret of the Poet” , which begins,

I have only the night as a friend
I can always go with her from moment to moment….

The piece describes the silent time under the dome of a darkened sky, sensing one’s own pulse.  Sensing time.  The music begins with luminous, drawn out woodwind and violin lines over a pizzicato cello heartbeat, and then the voice comes in, and the marking is sognando (dreaming).  The music describes this reverie and the sense of passion for life, for living life, that wells up over the course of this journey.   How amazing to have continually refined one’s perception of time, of our human place in time, and to so beautifully have transformed this into such music.

Here are some things that may not be connected.  But draw the circle wider, and perhaps they are.
I went to the Zoo yesterday.  Blog fans, if you are ever in San Diego, go to the Zoo.  I had heard about the Zoo, I had heard about big sprawling beautiful Balboa Park, but with various comings and goings, hadn’t made it there yet.  Yesterday, at 9 a.m. It was 75 degrees, there was not a cloud in the sky, (don’t hate me!)  and it was Sunday.  If you can’t go to the Zoo on such a day, when can you go?

It was a lovely, quiet morning; a good time to watch and be moved.  Such an immense amount of beauty in such unusual forms.  I looked for a long time at the koalas (and wondered if they were, in fact, alive – they were so still) and at those living mountains, the elephants.  I watched small feathered jewels of birds hop around their enclosures; their feathers at times so bright and at other times so intricately marked that they took my breath away.   Tigers playing, rolling on top of each other, nipping and running.   Funny bright meerkats, standing at attention, watching for who knows what.   Being what they are, completely what they are.

Fast forward to my class today.  One of my students is singing a piece; it is lovely, but something is missing.  It is not easy to know what to say, since it is already very good.  I ask him to tell us what, specifically, the song means to him, what he thinks about when he is singing it, what story he is trying to tell.  He begins to tell us- though it isn’t easy, and why should it be, to express such things to relative strangers?  But he does and the story becomes more specific, unique, poignant.   Then I made the request that that be the story he would tell, in his singing, only that.   And this young fellow did just that; and we all sat, moved, spellbound, hearing something unique and alive and completely true.

Where is the connection?  I marvel sometimes at just how difficult it is for us, for human beings, to be just what we are, to be simply true.  I know that the moments when I experience this as a singer, are the most satisfying – simply because I am lost, lost in the music, in my own truth.   And hearing it in others never ceases to amaze me:  it is a quality that can’t be bought or sold or manufactured and everyone who loves listening to voices  recognizes it.  It’s the sound of being  completely who you are.   If you happen upon this site, and have never experienced this phenomenon, I hope someday that you do.  It makes time stop.  It changes your life.  For me, it is one of the great gifts of living.

I Hear America Singing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.
- Walt Whitman

Finally, we have found our voice again in Barack Hussein Obama.    It is a great day to be an American.  It is great to dare to hope again.

My first introduction to the music of Charles Ives was at San Francisco State University in, probably 1980, when I was a student.  I listened to the classic recording of Jan DeGaetani and Gilbert Kalish and a recording of Evelyn Lear and Thomas Stewart as well. I can’t remember why I was listening to those songs; had they been assigned?  had someone mentioned them in a class? – I don’t remember.  I do remember the feeling that I had when I heard them.  It was “that’s what I want to do.”

How strange that I should feel that way.  My musical education, up until that time, had been rather eclectic, and certainly hadn’t included much – any – modern music.   What did I hear?  What did I recognize? After spending years with the songs of Charles Ives, and with music of the 20th and 21st centuries, I can’t say for sure.  Too many things overlap, blend – too much life, too many sounds and experiences.  I can say, though, that to me the music still sounds like memory.  Like American memory.

This is nothing new, of course – Ives’ own writings convey his intention to capture memories, and specific pictures of American life.   What is remarkable is that, in looking at both the larger compositional structure and the layers upon layers of details in the songs,  his songs seem to viscerally evoke memory as well.  (My colleague, the wonderful pianist Donald Berman, and I  discuss this idea in detail in the liner notes of our recent Ives’ CD on New World Records.)  But in those early days, I think I just I loved the sound of the songs.  They seemed to have complete emotional clarity, sometimes swimming in hazy landscapes, that would shift in and out of focus – sometimes with simple, sweet melodic lines, but with scarlight asymmetries that kept my ear completely intrigued.  These strange glimpses of life were stark, hopeful, grand, intimate – but above all, completely human and true.  I still hear that.  Do I exaggerate?  Well, forgive me if I do -  these songs have grown inside me for almost thirty years, and if love is blind, I do not care.

Or on the East Coast for that matter.   Blog fans (wherever and if-ever you are), do not despair!  I’ve been setting up West Coast life here in San Diego.   Yes, it’s different.  Sunny, 75 degrees and no humidity.  The light is so clear that the leaves actually glisten.   Between waiting for the cable guy, assembling a bunch of new, mysterious keys, and getting over the idea that the ocean is on the wrong side,  it’s been a wild ride.  But the other day, I managed to find time to take a drive and stumbled on this Farmer’s Market at Ocean Beach.   The produce of my dreams, and tomatoes that are…almost…as good as Jersey tomatoes.  Ok, I’m kidding.   Back to music soon, but in the meantime, enjoy the show.

Thinking back about the summer while it’s still lingering on, this phrase is sticking in my mind. -  “A good idea is good for everyone”  I’m not musing on campaign rhetoric.  I’m reflecting on my experience at the River Concert Series at St. Mary’s College down at the very tip of Maryland.  It’s an outdoor concert series, presenting programs with full symphony orchestra, with stunning views of the water, absolutely free and open to the public.  I had no idea what to expect.  Well, there were 3,000 people there.  Jeffrey Silberschlag, the music director of the festival and his wonderful staff are doing something remarkable.

The audience members choose their seats in different areas, depending on what  listening- to-socializing ratio they want.  People who have little ones take them to play on a knoll beside and behind the concert shell – from the stage I could see them, having a great time, but the sounds of their playing and our  playing stayed well separated.  The most amazing thing; we (the Chesapeake Orchestra, Jeffrey Silberschlag and I) performed  Aaron Jay Kernis’ Simple Songs, which is a lovely piece, with strong melodic profiles – but definitely a modern piece – and the audience gave us beautiful, concentrated attention.  On the second half, we performed four songs from Berlioz’ Les Nuits d’Ètè.   By then, dusk was gathering and the setting was just perfect – a warm summer night, and a sea of people just stretched out, enjoying the music. It was absolutely lovely, absolutely a pleasure.

Afterwards there was a very nice party and I got to talking with members of the staff.  They told me that a) children actually plead with their parents to be taken to these concerts and b) sometimes they even have a bigger audience.  I asked Jeffrey Silberschlag about the idea behind these concerts, where this had all begun and in the course of our talk he said “A good idea is good for everyone”.  And it is – good for the community, good for the businesses that support this series, good for kids who may never have heard a concert before – and good for those of us who spend our lives making music, whose lives have been changed by “classical” music. Those of you who  may read this in places where the arts are still subsidized, and where arts education is still a priority in school systems may have difficulty understanding what an heroic undertaking this is. It is, it truly is.  I applaud everyone involved with this series.  It’s a good idea and it is for everyone.

And, by the way, if you ever go to St. Mary’s City, run, don’t walk to Courtney’s.  It’s run by a wonderful couple – she is the cook, and everyday he goes out fishing for what ends up on your plate.  We had rockfish (a local speciality) and it was fresh, fresh, fresh and perfect.  Also fresh blackberry cobbler a la mode, which is served warm in a tall dessert goblet; it’s beautiful balance of tart and sweet, with a nice light cobbler crust.  It’s not fancy, but the food is great!