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many trips north
May. 24th, 2005 01:18 pmB's favorite musical work is Leonard Bernstein's Mass. I like it too, and we'll go to unusual lengths to attend a performance, just as the performers need to go to unusual lengths to stage this massive piece. She never goes to Santa Cruz, but we went there to hear the Cabrillo Festival production under Marin Alsop six years ago (I know when it was because we still have the commemorative refrigerator magnet), and on Friday we went to Oakland for the same purpose: Michael Morgan, Oakland East Bay Symphony.
When the Mass was first produced in 1971, a lot of critics shook their heads and said that, as a composer, Lenny had lost it. Vulgar, self-indulgent, and so on. One critic called it "fashionable kitsch" that would soon be forgotten. But those were the days of medicinal music, when only stuff that tasted bad was supposed to be good for you, and now those days are over. Here's what Maestro Morgan has to say in the program notes:
As a musical performance this was superb, better than Alsop's. Morgan really had hold of the Mass as a whole, commanding flow and tempos in utter fearlessness of the size of the work he was chewing. The ending in particular - the increasingly chaotic Agnus Dei, the hushed Fraction, and the healing Pax - was shattering in its impact. Hector Vasquez as the Celebrant was a fine singer, and the Street Chorus brought their own individuality to their parts.
As a stage performance, not so hot. There isn't enough room in the Paramount for a full staging. Most of the interactions supposed to occur on stage didn't, but there were dancers: women in red silk blouses floated weirdly around the aisles. Space problems, however, don't explain why Vasquez had no place to put his chalice, and wore, not the Celebrant's robes, but a jacket and tie. What the bleep? He's supposed to be a burdened priest, not a harried businessman.
Overall, attendance was well worth the trouble. The next time someone puts this work on around here, we'll go again.
Saturday, up all the way to Berkeley this time, to look into the Himalayan Fair packed into a small park. Lots of booths, lots of clothing for sale, lots of jewelry. And lots of singing bowls, which is what B. was looking for. Found a booth with a couple score of them. Tried out many until she found one with just the right full rich tone. At another booth we found a colorful wooden toy train as a present for train-mad grand-nephew Holden.
The park was only a couple blocks away from Black Oak Books, which I popped into and emerged without buying anything, surely an occurrence worth noting. We then dropped in on our Friends With Nine Cats, and the cats, and shared dinner in a terrific little Indian place on Solano. Then, off to a college graduation party. (I knew her when she was just a little thang, and now she are an honors graduate.) One city, one day, three events: we rarely do that.
Sunday, I came back up by myself to cheer![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sturgeonslawyer with the ingredients of a Monty Python video orgy. We went through my DVDs of the entire first two seasons of Flying Circus, picking out and watching all our favorite sketches. Which aren't necessarily the most famous: we are Python connoisseurs I'll have you know. And as if that weren't enough, we also watched the film Secondhand Lions. Lions don't purr, nor do they long for the jungle, but what the heck, it's a fantasy. Haley Joel Osment goes to live with his cranky, eccentric uncles Michael Caine and Robert Duvall: the cast alone made it intriguing. The uncles buy the abovementioned secondhand lion. In flashbacks, the young Duvall is played by the guy who played Lindsey on Angel. Overall, heartwarming, the way Iron Giant was heartwarming, which is appropriate since they were made by the same guy.
When the Mass was first produced in 1971, a lot of critics shook their heads and said that, as a composer, Lenny had lost it. Vulgar, self-indulgent, and so on. One critic called it "fashionable kitsch" that would soon be forgotten. But those were the days of medicinal music, when only stuff that tasted bad was supposed to be good for you, and now those days are over. Here's what Maestro Morgan has to say in the program notes:
The time is certainly right for the Bernstein Mass, which is why there are now productions of it coming to life all over the world. Between preemptive wars, culture wars, war on terrorism and terrorism itself, this large-scale call for peace is even more timely now than when it premiered in the 70's. The work is constantly underestimated by those who are still distracted by its liberal politics and liberal use of popular music idioms. But those of us who have studied it find that the more one studies it, the greater and greater it seems: both as a well-integrated piece of music and as a political/philosophical/spiritual statement.That's telling them. I'm proud to have lived to a time when artistic standards have gotten right side up again, and a work such as this can be acclaimed as the masterpiece it is.
As a musical performance this was superb, better than Alsop's. Morgan really had hold of the Mass as a whole, commanding flow and tempos in utter fearlessness of the size of the work he was chewing. The ending in particular - the increasingly chaotic Agnus Dei, the hushed Fraction, and the healing Pax - was shattering in its impact. Hector Vasquez as the Celebrant was a fine singer, and the Street Chorus brought their own individuality to their parts.
As a stage performance, not so hot. There isn't enough room in the Paramount for a full staging. Most of the interactions supposed to occur on stage didn't, but there were dancers: women in red silk blouses floated weirdly around the aisles. Space problems, however, don't explain why Vasquez had no place to put his chalice, and wore, not the Celebrant's robes, but a jacket and tie. What the bleep? He's supposed to be a burdened priest, not a harried businessman.
Overall, attendance was well worth the trouble. The next time someone puts this work on around here, we'll go again.
Saturday, up all the way to Berkeley this time, to look into the Himalayan Fair packed into a small park. Lots of booths, lots of clothing for sale, lots of jewelry. And lots of singing bowls, which is what B. was looking for. Found a booth with a couple score of them. Tried out many until she found one with just the right full rich tone. At another booth we found a colorful wooden toy train as a present for train-mad grand-nephew Holden.
The park was only a couple blocks away from Black Oak Books, which I popped into and emerged without buying anything, surely an occurrence worth noting. We then dropped in on our Friends With Nine Cats, and the cats, and shared dinner in a terrific little Indian place on Solano. Then, off to a college graduation party. (I knew her when she was just a little thang, and now she are an honors graduate.) One city, one day, three events: we rarely do that.
Sunday, I came back up by myself to cheer
sturgeonslawyer with the ingredients of a Monty Python video orgy. We went through my DVDs of the entire first two seasons of Flying Circus, picking out and watching all our favorite sketches. Which aren't necessarily the most famous: we are Python connoisseurs I'll have you know. And as if that weren't enough, we also watched the film Secondhand Lions. Lions don't purr, nor do they long for the jungle, but what the heck, it's a fantasy. Haley Joel Osment goes to live with his cranky, eccentric uncles Michael Caine and Robert Duvall: the cast alone made it intriguing. The uncles buy the abovementioned secondhand lion. In flashbacks, the young Duvall is played by the guy who played Lindsey on Angel. Overall, heartwarming, the way Iron Giant was heartwarming, which is appropriate since they were made by the same guy.
