affirmations and Thomas Hampson

Baritone Thomas Hampson was the soloist in three performances of songs from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn this weekend. He also gave a masterclass on Saturday on Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer, with several brave wind players adapting the vocal lines to their instruments. These kind of cross-disciplinary master classes are something I haven't seen done anywhere else, and they have been some of the most interesting I've witnessed. Last season Barbara Bonney gave a class on Schubert lieder, and earlier this fall pianist Robert Levin coached the Mozart wind concertos.

Since instrumentalists don't normally study art songs, Hampson had plenty to teach about the phrasings, articulation, and diction a singer would bring to them. He has researched and written quite a bit about these songs and the German Romantic poets, and collected a lot of his work on his website www.hampsong.com. Each of the four Songs of a Wayfarer paints a scene in the life of a young, apparently rejected lover; he encouraged us, though, to not read them as literal descriptions but as metaphoric realizations of emotions and experiences. Just as a flower or a bird can exist on several levels, romantic love and death can mean much more than the literal acts of loving or dying.

It all left my head spinning somewhat. In the last song, "Die zwei blauen Augen", Hampson talked about these lines of text:

Ich bin ausgegangen in stiller Nacht,
In stiller Nacht wohl uber die dunkle Haide;
Hat mir niemand Ade gesagt,
Ade, Ade!
Mein Gesell war Lieb' und Liede!

I went out in the still of night,
at dead of night across the gloomy heath.
No one said goodbye to me,
goodbye, goodbye;
my companions were love and grief.

One of the levels of meaning Hampson talked about here was the loss of outside affirmation - the poet looks for some token sign of warmth, a farewell gesture of friendship, and there is nothing. This related this to the truth we all discover at some point, that we can't depend on friends or critics for our sense of confidence and meaning. The whole cycle can be read as a kind of death to youthful ways of being, both the joyful innocence and the painful sorrows of being naive and emotionally vulnerable. These are incredibly sad songs, and yet they hint at a way of being that is not so dependent on the outside world for affirmation, and perhaps not so prone to suffering.

As performers we get this lesson every time a review comes out in the newspaper, and we find that we can't believe the praise or the criticism. It's not just that no one ever built a statue of a critic - we can't turn the performance into a statue either, a discrete object to examine and analyze. To the extent that it is successful, it has to remain a subjective, personal experience, both for the performer and the listener.

Still, it was nice to read a complimentary review by Lawrence Johnson in today's Miami Herald. I think Thomas Hampson deserves all the praise we can give him, even if it's all ephemeral!

Yiddish theater revival

I just listened to a radio interview with writer Stefan Kanfer, on NPR's Fresh Air. Kanfer talked about the history of Yiddish theater, which he wrote about in a book called Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yiddish Theater in America. Among the major figures they discussed were Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, the grandparents of Michael Tilson Thomas. This NY Times review of Kanfer's book describes Boris' popularity and ability to captivate audiences:

The audience demanded Acting above all — large emotions, dramatic gestures. This was a blessing for many in the Yiddish theater who were mainly entertainers. Thomashefsky reveled in mesmerizing the crowds. A matinee idol and ladies’ man, he enthralled a generation of young women, apparently inducing one to begin tearing her clothes off at the sight of his famous calves. This woman was just one of scores of “patriotn,” or fans, who passionately followed their favorite actors, engaging in heated arguments and even fistfights over who was the Yiddish theater’s supreme artist.

Kanfer talks quite a bit about how Yiddish theater has influenced popular culture - from the musical Fiddler on the Roof (based on a Yiddish play called Tevye the Milkman) to a less obvious influence on Cole Porter. Even Pablo Casals asked his students to sound "more Jewish," Kanfer says, asking for a lamenting, plaintive quality that Yiddish theater performers perfected. Even as such sounds entered our popular culture, and spread into vaudville, the Yiddish theater itself has all bit disappeared, along with a great deal of plays, music, and performers.

Next week our orchestra will be revive a bit of Yiddish theater, with a program called The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a life in the Yiddish Theater. Michael Tilson Thomas will conduct a small orchestra and several singers on two concerts, January 12 and 13. I'm not playing, but I'm looking forward to hearing it from the audience, since it seems like a rare chance to hear some fascinating, whimsical songs.

Mahler for dummies

This week our orchestra is performing Gustav Mahler's song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magical Horn). The singer is baritone Thomas Hampson, and the German texts will be translated and projected behind the stage. Playing in the orchestra, though, we have to figure out some translations for ourselves.

This is especially problematic when playing Mahler, since his German instructions tend to be as long and complex as his music. (All the simple stuff is in good old familiar Italian, but if he wants something weird, it's sure to be in German.) I did my homework and looked up these expressions at the online New English-German Dictionary. I'm not so great with German syntax, though, and all these endings and modifiers tend to mess me up. At least one term ("Marschartig") had no translation at all.

• Marschierend, in einem fort = Marching, on and on
• Vorschläge so schnell wie möglich = Grace notes as fast as possible
• Sich merklich mäßigend = markedly held back
• Etwas gemessener als zu Anfang = somewhat more measured, as at the beginning
• Marschartig = ? no translation
• Etwas langsamer = somewhat slower
• Verträumt. Leise = dreamy, softly
• Etwas zurückhaltend = somewhat more restrained
• Sehr gehalten = very calmly
• Gemessen, dumpf. Nicht schleppen = Measured, stuffy. Don't rush
• Bedeutend langsamer = considerably slower
• Leidenshaftlich = passionate

musical short stories

Speaking of short fiction, the past couple of weeks have brought two great stories in The New Yorker, both about musician couples. Actually, in both stories the couple is half musician and half non-musician, and that is the source of a good deal of the tension and interest behind the stories. Last week's story was "The First Sense" by Nadine Gordimer, and this week features "On Chesil Beach" by Ian McEwan.

Thinking about the relationships and tensions in these stories, I suppose that all couples have dimensions where the two people cannot participate equally. Often it might be a consuming hobby, a sports addiction, or a religious devotion. We allow our partners to pursue their interests, even when they separate us, or make us feel alien and inferior. In the long run, those inequalities can possibly help a relationship, giving us a space apart and a way to assert our own identities. I love Nadine Gordimer's description of her office worker married to a cellist:

She was so much part of the confraternity of orchestras. The rivalry among the players, drowned out by the exaltation of the music they created together. The gossip—because she was not one of them, both the men and the women trusted her with indiscretions that they wouldn’t risk with one another. And when he had differences with guest conductors from Bulgaria or Japan or God knows where, their egos as complex as the pronunciation of their names, his exasperation found relief, as he unburdened himself in bed of the podium dramas and moved on to the haven of lovemaking. If she was in a low mood—the -bungles of an inefficient colleague at work, or her father’s “heart condition” and her mother’s long complaints over the telephone about his disobeying doctor’s orders with his whiskey-swilling golfers—the cello would join them in the bedroom and he’d play for her.

There is certainly an upside to having a one-musician marriage - not only does each partner have a separate outlet, but you don't need to fight over practice space. At the same time, it seems unfortunate to not be able to share in that "exaltation" of creating something together, those moments on stage which are the most profound of a musician's life. It's hard to imagine how a couple that does not share such a passion could ever function, as in McEwan's story:

Edward had never cared for classical music, but now he was learning its sprightly argot—legato, pizzicato, con brio. Slowly, through brute repetition, he was coming to recognize and even like certain pieces. There was one that she played with her friends which especially moved him. When she practiced her scales and arpeggios at home, she wore a hair band, an endearing touch that caused him to dream about the daughter they might have one day.

Both of these stories are very much about sex, and musicality seems to become a symbol for emotional intimacy and even sexuality - in Gordimer's, the cello's voice traces the arc of an extramarital affair, while in McEwan, the violinist Florence's "sinuous and exact" playing seems to promise sensual affinities which she doesn't in fact possess. McEwan writes probably the most horrifying description of a kiss that I've ever read.

You could say that neither of these stories is really about music - but they both use the symbol for the beauty and complex awkwardness of a human relationship. In a musical performance hundreds of people can hear the same sounds and interpret them completely differently - horror and ecstasy can coexist, just like in a relationship, even in those precisely, wordlessly rendered notes.

very locals

....He also watched people walk on Lincoln Road, past the cafe. He could distinguish the Europeans from the South Americans and the Americans. The French traveled in pairs, usually couples, burnt from too much sun. The English came in small groups of pale and rowdy young men. The South Americans spoke softly and examined the menu carefully. The locals were easy to spot too. They left the best tips. Then there were what he called the very locals, the beautiful young people who lived on South Beach. They were tanned and fit and wore few clothes. They always had their cell phones out, talking into them or thumbing messages. There were others too--performers, pamphleteers, a man who sang the 1958 hit "Volare" in different keys, a juggler, and a one-armed crazy....

- from "Nothing" by Gonzalo Barr, The Last Flight of Jose Luis Balboa, p. 95

Gonzalo Barr writes stories that make the familiar seem strange, and the strange familiar. I read them this weekend in a state of astonished discovery, recognizing so many people I've watched or walked past on Lincoln Road. Like the bar manager in the story "Nothing", trying to please his customers, keep the orders coming, and fend off the crazies. I'd never thought much about who he was, what his life might be like - I would just walk past, cringing at those expensive drink prices. Reading Barr makes me regret how lazy my imagination has been, how little I bothered to wonder about all these people and their stories.

I think that like that bar manager, I tend to classify people quickly - tourist, local, sunburnt French couple - and then promptly forget about them. Partly it's a function of the volume of people around to see, and their willingness to be categorized. I'm not sure if I'm a proper South Beach local - I'm certainly not one of those 'very locals' with their cell phones and few clothes! Reading about this bar manager, Roig, certainly might lead me to tip him better, if only in sympathy for all he has to put up with. So local or not, Barr's stories brought me into the inner lives of people in Miami, which in composite could represent the inner life of the place itself.

In a NY Times review of another book I read recently, Dave Eggers' "What is the What", Francine Prose writes,

The liberties and devices of fiction (dialogue, voice, characterization and so forth) enable the writer to take us into the mind and heart of a person not unlike ourselves who talks to us from a distant period and place, and so becomes our guide to its sights and sounds, its sorrows and satisfactions.

I think it's a very good observation, and an explanation for the paradoxical way that fiction can be truer than memoir or non-fiction. Prose's description is just as relevant for a book set in one's own city and time, though - it seems to me that the great boundaries between people today are often not time or place but indifference and failure of imagination. When we can't fully understand or sympathize with our own neighbors, it's difficult to do so for Palestinian or Sudanese people. Still, I think great stories like Barr's can be a cure for indifference, and a way of entering into others' lives without harrassing or annoying them.

Gonzalo Barr appears today on WLRN's "Topical Currents".

exorcising audition demons

Lately I've been reading the blog Dragons and Princesses, written by a violinist under the name E.C.D. She has begun a series of posts chronicling auditions, leaving out any incriminating details: so far there is a Part One and Part Two. The big discovery here for me is not so much that violinists can be absurdly, maddeningly manipulative - playing mind games with eachother in the warm-up room and the waiting room, games which E.C.D. does her level best to resist entering. I probably already knew about these types, though hearing them in action is kind of astounding. Even more surprising, though, is that anyone could write about her audition experiences with so much grace, wit, and clarity - even without naming names.

Most of my audition experiences, I'm afraid to say, I've either blocked out or overdramatized in my memory. I think it's a great exercise though, or maybe exorcism is the better word - laughing at the insidious audition demons, so they can't take possession of your own mind!

In the meantime, I want to borrow an element from E.C.D.'s blog, a list on the sidebar of things I've been reading. I'm usually obsessed by some book or article, which infiltrates all my thoughts and even my writing - speaking of possession - but often I don't get around to mentioning these. So if you are ever curious what might influence me to write such odd things, a glance at the "What I'm reading" list might help shed some light. And if you would like to learn more about something I list there, please feel free to e-mail or comment, and I'll try to answer as best I can!

the elephant in the room

Classical pianist and blogger Jeremy Denk wrote an incredible poetic ballad, Mighty Contests, on his blog "Think Denk" this week. If you visit to read it, do yourself a favor and listen to Denk's reading, offered as a an audio link, and follow along. The whole seem might seem excessive and silly, but musicians really do devote this kind of painstaking thought, argument, and hand-wringing to restaurant choices. I've sometimes wondered how much more we'd all accomplish if we could all just stop obsessing over such things - then again, so many of the best musicians I know are also very dedicated foodies, and maybe there is some kind of correlation there. We live and die by our taste, I suppose.

Another story of life on the road appeared this past weekend on NPR's All Things Considered, with a piece on bassist Gary Karr's various travel disasters: "Karr's Double Bass Find Biggest Threat at the Airport." Two of Karr's basses suffered neck snaps on flights, which may partly explain why he quit touring. My bass also cracked at the neck on a flight - the date was September 4th, 2001, so my little tragedy didn't draw much sympathy. Still, ever since then flying has been an awful, stressful, and expensive ordeal. I get the sense that things are only getting worse.

Karr tells how back in the day, bassists took their instruments with them onto the plane. Then, when seating became more cramped, he had to buy two first class tickets, but at least got to choose two meals, and eat both. (What an epic might Jeremy Denk have written in such a situation!) These days, I feel lucky if I manage to get my bass on at all. Airline counter agents are ever-more vigilant about the weight limitations, no more than 100 lbs. for any piece of checked luggage. This sounds reasonable, but it is quite difficult to pack a bass securely in a hard-shell trunk at that weight. If the agents choose to weigh mine, it usually tips the scales at 108-112, triggering a long round of refusals, pleading, phone calls to supervisors and baggage handlers, etc. My trunk is hardly the worst offender, either - the Kolstein trunk shown here weighs nearly 150 lbs. with a bass inside.

The future of airline transportation with basses will apparently require massive alteration of all our instruments. A Canadian luthier has begun fitting basses with removable necks - ironically, after all those basses snapped at the base of the neck on flights, now they'll be coming apart by design. It's a brilliant solution, if an expensive one - not only is the case much smaller, but it even relieves the pressure and tension on the instrument, possibly even improving the sound. A belt of some sort maintains just enough tension on the body of the instrument to keep the sound post in place.

I don't have any pictures of this new system, and I am not quite ready to submit my own instrument to the knife. For now anyway, I'll just keep testing my luck with the counter agents.

Visit Jason Heath's Bass Page, which features several more horrifying yet entertaining tales of travels with the bass.