and now, a musical interlude
Jan. 10th, 2009 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacThe presidential inauguration is just a week from Tuesday. (I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a President today.) Here's the schedule of events.
Between the inaugurations of Mr Biden and Mr Obama - just when the suspense is most intense - we will be distracted by a musical interlude. The performers caught my professional attention:
But is a mystic work premiered in a prisoner-of-war camp likely to be played at a demotic festive ceremony like a presidential inauguration? And if it were, could its largely still and quiet tones be heard? (There are some audio samples of the Quatuor here, and plenty of full movements on YouTube under either the French or English title.)
Probably not. The previous line on the program schedule gives it away:
Between the inaugurations of Mr Biden and Mr Obama - just when the suspense is most intense - we will be distracted by a musical interlude. The performers caught my professional attention:
Itzhak Perlman (Violin), Yo-Yo Ma (Cello), Gabriela Montero (Piano), Anthony McGill (Clarinet)
There are a few works in the concert repertoire for that particular combination of instruments. The best-known is the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) by Olivier Messiaen. As it happens, I have even heard this work performed by an ensemble including this clarinetist, Anthony McGill. I thought he was excellent.But is a mystic work premiered in a prisoner-of-war camp likely to be played at a demotic festive ceremony like a presidential inauguration? And if it were, could its largely still and quiet tones be heard? (There are some audio samples of the Quatuor here, and plenty of full movements on YouTube under either the French or English title.)
Probably not. The previous line on the program schedule gives it away:
Musical Selection, John Williams, composer/arranger
The composer whose best-known work is the score to a film which gave its title to one of Ronald Reagan's more, shall we say elusive, projects. Still, Williams is conservatory-trained and surely knows the Quatuor. Perhaps we can rely on Messiaen to supply a leitmotif or two?
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Date: 2009-01-10 05:29 pm (UTC)And disliking John Williams' music.
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Date: 2009-01-10 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-11 02:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-10 08:17 pm (UTC)At the very least, the presence of Yo-Yo Ma as one of the performers ensures that that won't happen. His record label doesn't let him do anything but crossover any more, although occasionally he'll sneak off with some orchestra or other and smoke some Dvorak or Elgar on the QT.
The last time classical music was played on one of the major commercial broadcast networks (not counting bits of the "Ode to Joy" in spots promoting sitcom episodes) was in last year's Kennedy Center Honors (not this year's, from which classical musicians were excluded). On that occasion, Leon Fleisher was "honored" with a performance by Jonathan Biss and conductor Jaime Laredo of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy which had been reduced to sausage, as though by Mrs. Lovett's meat-grinder, so that the slackjawed viewers wouldn't lose interest and switch to wrestling.
And the last time Yo-Yo Ma performed classical music on a commercial network, it was a Bach Sarabande, reduced to mere background music to the "In Memoriam" clips at the Academy Awards a few years ago.
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Date: 2009-01-10 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-11 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-10 10:53 pm (UTC)