one day, two concerts

[calimac]

I got on my way early enough on Sunday to indulge my full plan of driving to the end of the BART line and taking the train into the City with enough time left to 1) have a late lunch at a Mission District tacqueria, 2) visit Borderlands Books, and 3) get to the 4 PM chamber music concert I was reviewing at a Noe Valley (that's what they call it - "valley") church up on a hill above the Mission in plenty of time without feeling rushed (rush is always bad for the reviewing chops).

And the concert ended at quarter to 6, which allowed enough time to saunter back down the hill to BART, take that over to Berkeley, and walk uphill as far as Telegraph to get a quick bite (a pizza slice from Blondie's: fast, hot, and about a year's supply of grease) before entering the hushed precincts of another church for the Chora Nova concert that I fancied extracurricularly, and I was in the neighborhood anyway, San Francisco and Berkeley being pretty much the same neighborhood from this distance.

There was apparently more than one thing going on in the church, so at the ticket table - having forgotten the name of the choir - I asked if this were the right spot for the Kodály concert. The ticket-seller had no idea what I was talking about, until a superior overheard and showed him the place in the program book where it said "Kodály". I might forget the name of the choir - there's lots of choirs around - but there's only one Zoltán Kodály. He was a Hungarian perhaps best-known now for his work fostering musical education, but he was also a notable composer rather further along the listener-friendly scale than most of Béla Bartók. I'd never heard note one of his vocal music, and here were a whole Missa Brevis and some folk-inspired compositions (including a birthday song whose text contains a blank spot for the singers to insert the name of the celebrant: for this concert, somebody decided that "Erzsébet" [Hungarian for Elizabeth] would be a good name).

The vocal folk dances tumbled around in good "Galánta Dances" style, and the Mass was lovely and strange. A couple key phrases, "Christe eleison" and "Dona nobis pacem", were taken out of context and sung by three sopranos in a thin high piercing wail the likes of which I've heard from vocal music of only one other composer. So now I know, I realized, where György Ligeti got that strange sound from. Kodály followed it up with some exposed growlings from the basses at an absurdly low pitch. This would have been a good work to excerpt on one of those old LPs designed to test your stereo system with.

Just as satisfying as sound to comfortably bury one's ears in was the one non-Kodály piece on the program, an Ave Maria by Mendelssohn. Solo tenor was Jimmy Kansau, who'd had the lead solo part in Tippett's A Child of Our Time in the magnificent Santa Cruz performance I heard a few years ago. He was excellent, the chorus gave a beautifully blended sound, and the organ accompaniment backed up the harmonies nicely without being intrusive.

As for that chamber music concert, I thought, until I arrived at the hall, that this would be a rare chance to hear the generally forgotten, but esteemed by connoisseurs, British/American post-Impressionist Rebecca Clarke. No such luck; the program was changed at some point in between updating the web site and printing the program book, and we got Rubin Goldmark instead. Not a fair exchange. But the concert was pleasant. Sixty people on folding chairs in a second-floor church hall, not one of those people looking as if they'd made their way uphill five blocks from the Mission.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The Rebecca Clarke website to which you linked indicates that she took first place in the 1919 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge competition. An article on Clarke and Amy Beach in John Simon on Music: Criticism 1979-2005 (pp. 347-55) claims that Coolidge herself cast a tie-breaking vote, and that Clarke therefore took second to Ernest Bloch -- can you say which is correct?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The Grove's article on the Clarke website says her works were runners-up. The home page, which is perhaps what you were looking at, says "tied for first place." Combine that with John Simon's explanation of a tie-breaking vote, and it seems to me that there's a fully consistent story here.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Paul Flight - who studied Kodaly method with Hungarians - decided on Erzebet. St. Erzebet is one of the Hungarian patron saints, along with Istvan (Stephen), and so it's a common name in Hungary.

Not sure I would count on this Mass as the source of Ligeti's vocal writing style. I chatted with Ann Moss about those phrases and we both thought Kodaly must have had or been thinking of boy sopranos and their sound.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Does the score provide for differing numbers of syllables of the honoree's name? (I see that provided for all the time in scores of popular songs where the strophes differ in scansion.)

Maybe boy sopranos were Kodaly's inspiration. But that eerie, keening result sounds very unlike the light, pure sound of a boys' chorus. And the real question is, not what might have inspired Kodaly, but what might have inspired Ligeti?

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

There is a full bar of 2/4 for fitting in the honoree's name.

I've never heard a boys' chorus singing in the range called for by the mass. They might sound equally keening. The top soprano line is entirely above the staff and goes up to C.

Re inspiration to Ligeti, both composers could have taken inspiration from the same source.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Well, if a boys' chorus doesn't sing like that, I'd doubt that Kodaly was inspired by it. And Ligeti sounds like one even less.