Tomorrow would have been my mother's 95th birthday.
She would tell you she was really 81 "and don't I look wondahful?"
She did, and she would today, even at 95!
It's hard to beleive she's been gone for thirty years.
She'd insist she was in heaven, "Hiding from your poor father and his sisters, who were all lovely women. Could never live with them."
She was a piece of work was Mary Duddy Purdy.
She was a small woman, strong, tough, vulnerable, troubled, smart and funny.
She was a lioness to me, her only child, even though her mantra to me, her only child, was always: "Take up thy mat and walk".
No whinig allowed.
She dispproved of my love life, though I imagine her to have been secretly relieved I had one. "If you
want to marry that lovely fat girl, suit yourself. She has quite the mouth on her."
Said woman, with whom I was involved all through college, sang I know that my redeemer liveth as the processional at my father's funeral in 1981. We all had to stand. And stand. The singing was beautiful and the music sublime. But, in a stage whisper from the new widow I -and the entire church-heard "This is very long! You know I got people comin' back to the house afthah!"
My mother had three brothers. Army/Navy veterans, tough guys. I expect they were all afraid of her.
Her parents lived to be very old. Into her fifties she would march into her childhood home to clean curtains, arrange furniture, leave meals and lists for my Uncles...who had lives of their own-too bad, they shoulda asked first.
Mother loved her beer, and God help you if you took the last one.
God help you even more if you took the last one on a Sunday, when back in the day beer sales were prohibited. More than once I was send down to Uncle Jack's basement, where it was well known he hid a stash "down cellah."
That this was technically breaking and entering was of no cocnern to her. She made me do it.
She adored her brothers, her parents, her nieces and nephews, and me.
At her death one of my cousins cried out, "Who will run our lives?"
That she knew neither her daughter in law or her only grandchild is a lasting sorrow to me.
Her granddaughter is the image of her.
She endured the years of my father's long, long decline, and a lonely widowhood. She was beginning to lose her memory when she died suddenly. God was good to her.
The MYCincinnati Chamber Ensemble is an El-Sistema inspired orchestra program based in Cincinnati. You'll recall that El Sistema is the music education program for young people begun some years ago in Venezuela. The program has gone worldwide, with conductor megastar Gustavo Dudamel the poster boy.
It's great that El Sistema has developed such fantastic programs, and has inspired similar efforts.
The MYCincinnati Ambassador Ensemble is a string sextet of young musicians led by MYCincinnati Director Eddy Kwon. The Ensemble will play at Wild Goose Creative in Columbus, 2491 Summit St., on Sunday March 20 at 2 PM. Admission is free.
The chamber ensemble describes itself as "A radical youth string ensemble committed to social justice, collective action through avant performance, and experimental collaborations."
Sounds like heaven to an old Leftie like me. A documentary film on the ensemble, produced by Michael Wilson and Harry Wilson will be shown at Wild Goose, along with a 'live' performance.
MYCincinnati is a free, daily youth orchestra program that uses music as a vehicle for youth development, community engagement and social change. Over 80 young musicians meet for at least 2 hours every weekday learning violin, viola, cello, double bass and playing in an orchestra.
Come to Wild Goose Creative this Sunday at 2 pm to see and hear a group of kids, ages 13-18, play music and work toward making an inclusive world. You can sit by me.
The Columbus Symphony performs Dvorak's Symphony 7 in D minor, op. 70; Haydn's Cello Concerto in C, HobVIIb No 1, and Muse by Christopher Theofanidis. March 18-19 in the Ohio Theater. Guest conductor is Robert Moody, with Mark Kosower, cello. Pre-concert talks one hour before each performance. MUSE by Christopher Theofanidis is a 12 minute piece for strings and harpsichord. It was written for The Brandenburg Project, sponsored by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestras. Six composers were selected to write pieces based on each of Bach's Brandenburg Concerti, with the idea of creating a catalog of concerti for the 21st century. Theonfanidis (b. 1967-) was told to use the 3rd Brandenburg. Muse uses an especially lovely pulse in the second movement (below @ 3:00)
Antonin Dvorak's Seventh Symphony, considered by many his greatest works, owes its existence to a 'perfect storm'. Dvorak by the 1880s had become a well regarded musician and composer whose career was confined to the Slavic countries. His use of Czech folk music, the titles given some of his works (Slavonic Dances) isolated his career from the mainstream: the German-Austro world of Schumann, Brahms and Wagner.
It was Brahms who became a mentor to Dvorak and recommended him to the Viennese publisher Fritz Simrock. Herr Simrock was a businessman first. He expected a more worldly composer than Dvorak but was happy to publish the Slavic spiced short pieces which were good sellers for home music making. Added to this was the encouragement of music's mightiest music journalist of the time, Eduard Hanslick, who wrote Dvorak,
It would be advantageous for your works to become known outside of your narrow Czech fatherland, which in any case does not do much for you.
But you don't become a world famous composer by writing Slavic Dances.
Antonin Dvorak (1840-1901)
Dvorak's Stabat Mater had made a big hit at several of the large British choral festivals, and by 1884 the composer had been invited to write a new work for the London Philharmonic Society. Here at last was the big time. He was also trying to complete an opera for Vienna, but when that project stalled he went to work on his Symphony. The first performance of the 7th, conducted by the composer in London was a smash. The Vienna premiere conducted by Hans Richter put Dvorak on the intentional map.
The Seventh Symphony is pure music. It was inspired by Brahms Symphony 3, and Brahms was adamant that none of his symphonic music had a program. It wasn't supposed to be about anything. He had encouraged Dvorak to eschew the folk music style that had guaranteed his career to date. Outside of the Czech countries Dvorak had seemed provincial. Not with the 7th in London and in Vienna.
The work is in four movements and is scored for large orchestra. The theme of the first movement came not in a dream or in a lightning flash of inspiration, but at the railway station. Dvorak loved trains almost as much as he loved music. It was the arrival of a band of Hungarian artists at Prague that Dvorak said gave him the Symphony's principal theme. Brooding, expectant, dramatic.
The second movement in particular is the source of lovely melody. It is only in the third, with the use of the furiant, a dance rhythm in 3 subdivided with in 2-3 or 3-3 that he nods more toward Prague than Vienna
Dvorak fell out with Simrock over billing. He insisted that his name be spelled in the Czech way, Antonin. Simrock said the German Anton was better business. I just wanted to tell you that a composer has a homeland which he must serve with faith and which he must love.
It wasn't easy to give up a nationalistic style, and Dvorak often returned to the dance rhythms and colors of Czech speakers. Ironically, Dvorak later made a career in America, where he was considered the most cosmopolitan of composers. But that's another story.
If Dvorak's Seventh Symphony owes trains, Brahms, Hanslick and Simrock for its inspiration, Haydn's Cello Concerto in C wasn't known to exist at all until 1961 (Haydn died in 1809) . The score was found among musical detritus in the Prague National Museum by musicologist Oldrich Plunkert.
Mark Kosower
How to authenticate the work unknown for so long? The first movement, not in Haydn's hand had been listed in the composer's own catalog of his works. The pages found had initials and a dedication to Joseph Weigl, who we can authenticate served as cellist of the Esterhazy Orchestra during the 1760s.
We have a three movement work enhanced by the use of ritornelli, a principal theme that keeps 'returning' usually for full orchestra. The cello is not an easy instrument for which to write a concerto. The instrument's low, mellow tone was not designed to cut through an orchestra. By giving the tutti-the entire band its own opportunities to shine, Haydn can give pride of place to the cello, either in the long lines favored in the second movement, or the intricate filigree of the first, and the finale. Whether discovered in 1760 or 1961, Haydn's Cc Major Concerto for Cello is another work loaded with that composer's skill and wit. And remember, Haydn was writing as composer in residence of a wealthy, noble family. The greater the music, the greater their prestige.
The Columbus Symphony presents music by Rimsky-Korsakov, Respighi and John Luther Adams at a Happy Hour Concert Thursday at 6.30 in the Ohio Theater. Peter Stafford Wislon conducts. Admission is free. No tickets needed. Cash bar with free eats. This weekend's programs adds the Piano Concerto 5 5 by Saint-Saens with Pascal Roge. Friday
Peter Stafford Wilson
and Saturday nights at 8 in the Ohio Theater.
Our own Columbus symphony repeats the wildly successful 'Happy Hour' concert model this Thursday. To white: Free concerts, no tickets needed, just show up. Free eats. Cash bar, and take the brewskies in the theater with you if you want. Loosen your girdle, sit back, imbibe and listen to a wonderful orchestra, YOUR wonderful orchestra play a one hour concert of music by Rimsky-Korsakov, Respighi and John Luther Adams.
John Luther Adams
Who? John Adams the second U.S. president? John Adams who wrote Nixon in China. No. This is John Luther Adams, an American composer born in 1953. JLA is an environmentalist and something of a sound scape artist. Oh, God that sounds like a-tonal noise to me!
No and again No. JLA won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for his one movement symphonic work, 'Become Ocean.' He deserved to win. Adams, who lived in Alaska for many years, takes his inspiration from nature. Big deal.So did Mahler and Bruckner, not to mention Vivaldi. Yes, but none of those worthies wrote music that so depicts space, and silence. If that doesn't make sense to you, check out some of John Luther Adam's musicon youtube. No its not minutes of silence a la John Cage gimmickry. This is music of stars shining, mountains coming into and going out of view, glaciers creaking, rivers rushing, drying and trying to rush aagain. This is not music with the idea of 'babbling'; brooks' but with a spiritual connection to the elements.
John Luther Adams is a sound painter that will take you to the depths of icy water and to the the clouds above them. The Columbus symphony performs his Dreams of White on White this weekend's concerts. Here's a chance to hear a composer literally making waves.
Any large and lusty oorchestra, like our own will revel in the color Rimsky-Korsakov brings to his music. The Capriccio espagnol is the next best thing to sipping an aperitif on the Ramblas while looking at the girls. Respighi, who studied with Rimsky-Korsakov, inherited his masters love for orchestral color. There are those who will tell you he was further inspired by Mussolini's fascisti. I suspect the duce understood the propaganda value of the creative artist. The composer Mascagni wrote a long and boring opera about Nero, clearly meant to flatter the government. Respighi stuck to the eternal city. We'll hear the glamorous Fountains of Rome.
If you've never been to an orchestral concert, this program is for you. Peter Stafford Wilson always condcus with skill and charm. The Columbus Symphony will mesmerize those brought up on Digital-Imax. Go hear some 'live' music. Thursday night is free! The weekend adds a superb French pianist in Monsiueur Roge. Camille Saint--Saens did everythig well, in music (and elsewhere if you believe the strories). Want to know more? Pre-concert talks one hour before the Friday and Saturday perforamnces. I tell secrets!
The Columbus Symphony performs a Russian Festival in the Ohio Theater Friday January 9th and Saturday the 10th at 8 p.m. Your humble author (!) offers pre-concert talks in the theater one hour prior to every Classical series performance.
RossenMilanov conducts the Columbus Symphony in two programs of music by Russian composers in the Ohio Theater this weekend. We'll hear Mussorgsky'sPictures at an Exhibition, a Suite from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Rimsky-Korsakov'sRussian Easter Overture, Rachmaninoff'sPiano Concerto 3, and Shostakovitch'sSymphony 5.
If these gray days of winter seem akin to the howling winds on the Russian steppes, it seems worth looking at the life of a musician in Russia over the past 150 years.
Shostakovitch lived and trembled under the Soviet regime. Rachmaninoff left Russia prior to the murder of the last Tsar in 1918. Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov were the products of a society influenced by the Russian autocracy. Mussorgsky, who may have been the most gifted of all, died young from alcoholism, having spent most of his working life as a low level Russian bureaucrat.
Mussorgsky is an interesting case. His addictions and "day job" made it difficult for him to finish a lot of his music. Of his larger scores given today, only A Night on Bald Mountain is considered complete in the composer's own handwriting. Pictures at an Exhibition was begun as a work for solo piano, later orchestrated by Ravel. Mussorgsky's great opera Boris Godunovwas re orchestrated after the composer's death by Rimsky-Korsakov, and later by Shostakovitch. Tchaikovsky, also emotionally fragile, was left to create and finish his own music.
Over the last thirty years musicians have returned to Mussorgsky's original scores. We hear a spare, sinewy and harsh orchestral color, very far from Rimsky-Kosakov, that master orchestrator. Did Rimsky improve upon Mussorgsky's music, or just get in the way? The fact remains that without the intervention of Rimsky-Korsakov and others, we would know less of Mussorgsky's music than we do now. And had Mussorgsky lived to maturity, and been blessed with better mental health, who knows what he would have accomplished?
And here is Mussorgsky's original:
Russian composers of the 19th century were subjected to the same market forces and critical perceptions affecting (plaguing?) composers today. If the people don't like your music they won't come to your concerts. If the news papers don't like your music people will stay away. Tchaikovsky did not have a strong enough ego to resist these forces, though his talent was obviously divine. Rimsky-Korsakov, known in his lifetime as a (great) teacher of music -Stravinsky was his pupil-had a healthy sense of his own worth and struggled on.
Russian musicians were influenced by the modes and melodies of the Russian church, and by the music making available to the eighty percent of the population living in want, if not slavery in the countryside. Peasants made there own music, filled with sorrow and joy. The intelligentsia listened, copied, expanded and gave a Russian language of music to the west. As vast as he country itself.
If the Soviet Union mean to enforce complete equality it also took away any vestige of artistic Shostakovitch had to write what the Politburo wanted people to hear. The influence of church music was verboten-if hard to eradicate. The countryside was fine, as long as the downtrodden peasants were uplifted. What would not do was free thought. 'Formalism' was a capital offense, writing or creating what you wanted. Shostakovitch was ruined when Stalin heard Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. This opera by the thirty year old Shostakovitch depicted Russian peasant life in its brutality, with music and on stage depictions often pornographic. Watch the clip and listen to the music. The characters are doing exactly what the music suggests they are doing.
freedom.
For his sins all the knives went out for Shostakovitch. Hiding away was not an option. The Soviet world literally put a gun to his head making it crucial that his next work, be what it may, delight the Soviet authorities. Indeed, a letter signed by he composer indicated his 5th symphony to be "A Soviets' response to just criticism." Shostakovitch's Fifth symphony was premiered in Leningrad in 1937. The success was immediate. The conductor Mravinsky held the score up above his head, like the gospels, as the audience roared its approval.
Inevitably, persons began to assign emotion to this work. Was it a victory symphony over the Soviet bureaucracy? Was it an apology? Was the martial finale a call to arms or a victory march? Was the long, largo movement, meditative and enthralling in its beauty, a lament?
Shostakovitch could say nothing. Russian music had come full circle, with the market circumventing the
authority of the government, as it had in the days of the Tsars a hundred years before, The people-peasants?-heard what they needed to hear in a new work the composer needed to write. Statues of Stalin are being pulled down in the 21st century. Shostakovitch's music triumphs in Moscow, St. Petersburg, London, Paris, New York and Columbus.
What's more interesting to me is What did you read? Please leave your favorites on this blog!
These are the books I read in 2015. I admit to having to review some of them, read many months ago, and have indicated a few notes in ( ).
I no longer have an iron clad memory. I knew enough about each * to remember loving the reading of same. + indicates an author interview.
My favorite books read in 2015:
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. The world evaporates and the survivors huddle together in makeshift communities. A touring company of actors perform King Lear for the survivors.
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande A physician explores how we die. Is life at all costs worth it?
Bettyville by George Hodgman A gay man leaves his life in New York to care for his elderly mother in North Carolina. I interviewed author George Hodgman for All Sides Weekend Books
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
T. Geronimo Jones
Three students go to a buddy's hometown and are impacted by a terrible accident. Author interveiw for ASWB
Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova A family is affected by a terrible, hereditary illness. And they don't give in. Nobody goes easily.
The Wright Brothers by David McCullogh A close look at the intersecting lives of Wilbur and Orville Wright, with their formidable sister Catherine more than in the background.
Rosemary: The Missing Kennedy by Kate Clifford Larson The eldest Kennedy daughter was disabled by a lobotomy ordered by her father and spent sixty years out of the public eye. The story of a beautiful young woman whose limits the family could not accept. Author interview for ASWB
Did You Ever Have a Family? by Bill Clegg. The New York Times hated this book. The New York Times doesn't know what its talking about.
____________________________
The Bone
Clocks by David Mitchell
*Can we talk
about something more pleasant? By Roz
Chast
At Freddie’s
by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Bookshop
by Penelope Fitzgerald
Boy on the
Ice (Derek Boogard-hockey enforcer) by John Branch
Suspended Sentences:
Three novellas by Patrick Modiano: Afterimage; Suspended Sentences; Fires of
Ruin
Gray
Mountain by John Grisham
Not my Father’s Son by Alan Cumming
King’s Curse
Phillipa Gregory
*Hand to
Mouth Linda Tirano
The Tudor
Vendetta Gortner
Map of Betrayal
Ha Jin
Digging for Richard
III Michael W. Pitts
Call Me
Debbie Deborah Voigt
*Station
Eleven Emily St. John Mandel
Offshore
Penelope Fitzgerald
We were
liars e. lockhart
Still Alice
Lisa Genova
Everything I
Never Told You Celeste Ng
Roland
Hayes: Legacy of an American Tenor Christopher Brooks and Robert Sims
A Royal
Experiment (George III and family)
Janice Hadlow
Before He
Finds Her Michael Kardos
Glen
Campbell Life with my Father Debby Campbell
The Death of
a President William Manchester
The
Gathering Anne Enright
All
Gone Alex Wichtel
The Good Son
(JFK Jr.) Christopher Andersen
Stand Up and Sing Jessye Norman The
Sacrifice Joyce Carol Oates (Tawana Brawley)
*Being
Mortal Atul Gawande
Atul Gawande
The Woman
Who Wasn’t There Robin Gaby Fisher and Angelo Guglielmo
Close Your
Eyes, Hold Hands Chris Bojalian
Revival
Stephen King
*The Whites
Harry Brandt (cop Billy Graves)
The Boston
Girl Anita Diamant (Addie Baum)
Vivid Faces
: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland R.F. Foster
*A History of Loneliness John Boyne
*+Bettyville
George Hodgman
My Father’s
Wives Mike Greenberg
*Welcome to
Braggsville T. Geronimo Johnson
*The Red
Badge of Courage Stephen Crane
*Family
Ties John Boyne
+Mockingbird
Next Door Marja Mills
Frog Mo Yan (Gugu mid wife)
*Culture
Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class Scott Timberg
The Long Loneliness Dorothy Day
Thomas
Menino Mayor for the 21st Century
The
Absolutist John Boyne
To Die
For Joyce Maynard (Pam Smart)
The Drop
Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane
Lord of the
Flies William Goldsmith
+The Phantom
of Fifth Avenue (Huguette Clark)
Huguette Clark
Meryl Gordon
The
Brothers Marya Gessen (Tsarnaev)
The Heist
(Gardner Museum) Stephen Kurkjian
All
Involved Ryan Chattis (Rodney K LA
riots)
Crippen John
Boyne
***To Kill a
Mockingbird Harper Lee
*Inside the
O’Briens Lisa Genova (Huntington's)
The
Residence Kate Andersen Brower
Mussolini
and the Pope David Kerzer
Hell and
Good Company the Spanish Civil War and the World it Made Richard Rhodes
The Fifth
Gospel Ian Caldwell
The Book of
Joan Melissa Rivers
Love Anthony
Lisa Genova (autistic boy)
Crane Death
of Bob Crane Bob Crane Jr
The Girl on
the Train Paula Hawkins
A Vision of
Voices: John Crosby Craig A. Smith
Madeleine
Kahn William V. Madison
My
Grandfather Would Have Shot Me Jennifer
Teege
Days of
Rage: America’s Underground Bryan
Burroughs
*Princes at
War Deborah Cadbury
A Fine
Romance Candice Bergen
Left
Neglected Lisa Genova
Our Town Kevin Jon McEnroe (Joanna Moore)
Islands in
the Stream Ernest Hemingway
Stalin’s
Daughter The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva Rosemary
Sullivan
*The Wright
Brothers by David McCullough
*Tchaikovsky
by Alexandr Podiansky
*Muse
Jonathan Galassi (Ida Perkins, poet Paul Dukasch publisher)
A Lucky Life
Interrupted Tom Brokaw
Harper Lee
Go Set a
Watchman Harper Lee
Tennessee
Williams John Lahr
New
York Edward Rutherfurd
A Complex Fate:
William L. Shirer and the 20th
Century Ken Cuthbertson
Our Man in
Charleston Christopher Dickey
(Robert
Bunch Civil War)
The
Speech Bernie Sanders
The
Bookaneer Matthew Pearl
Paris Edmund
Rutherfurd
Act One Moss
Hart
Can I go
now? Sue Mengers Brian Kellow
Persuasion
Jane Austen
Strangler Brian McGrory
Dazzler: The
Life of Moss Hart Seven Bach
Stronger
Jeff Bauman (Boston Marathon Chelmsford MA)
Northanger
Abbey Jane Austen
Purity
Jonathan Franzen
My First 100
Years in Show Business Mary Louise Wilson
Mr Smith
Goes to Prison Jeff Smith
Pride and
Prejudice Jane Austen
Under the
Same Sky Joseph Kim (NKorea)
*Mary
McGrory by John Norris
*Rosemary:
The Hidden Kennedy Daughter Kate
Clifford Larson
The Missing Kennedy Elizabeth Stroehler Pentacoff
The Taming
of the QueenPhillipa Gregory
A Common
Struggle Patrick Kennedy
*Finale A
Novel of the Reagan Years Thomas Mallon
*The Turner
House Angela Flournoy
Nixon Evan
Thomas
Antonia Fraser
My History
Antonia Fraser
Rebels of Ireland
Edward Rutheford
RFK Jr.
Jerry Oppenheimer
Emma Jane
Austen
Great is the
Truth: Secret, Scandal and the Quest for Truth at Horace Mann School Amos Kamil
*Fellow
Travelers Thomas Mallon
****Did you
ever have a family Bill Clegg
Truth in Advertising
John Kenney
Razzle
Dazzle :The Battle for Broadway Michael Riedel
The Shift:
One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients Four Lives Theresa Brown, RN
Lady Bird
and Lyndon :The Hidden Story of the Marriage that Made a President Betty Boyd Caroli
*The Washingtons Flora Fraser The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick Lost Illusions Honore de Balzac
