Rolling in the Deep: the video

The new hit single by Adele somehow escaped my notice until a few weeks ago. When I did finally hear it, I also checked out the video on Youtube, and was quite taken by it. I love the rooms filled with glass and ceramics (though they seem like a terrible waste!), but most of all the dancer in the room filled with sand caught my eye. Something about that room - the low ceiling, the harsh lighting, the sand - evokes a subterranean chamber. I was reminded of the mine shaft I visited last summer in Lansford, PA. The dancer herself, though, brings out a more savage and distant aspect of the scene. She is graceful and full of an inscrutable purpose, seemingly ready to bring down the walls and ceiling with her dance. I see Gagool, the "witch" in King Solomon's Mines, in her. She is something so earthy and distant from Adele's lament of love ill-spent that the video itself becomes more interesting than the shabbily "veiled" lyrics. The dancer joins with the beat of the drums to surpass the singer's polished wail.

Musical Theater = that which causes post-play depression

My last gen ed class of college is on a very familiar and special subject for me: Musical Theater. Having grown up on Broadway music and occasionally indulged in the theater bug at the local Village Players Theater, this is a class I love despite the distant aspect of it (like my statistics class, THDA 440 is online this summer). For the first assignment, I had to describe what "musical theater means to me:" which is to say, the dual association of the classic Broadway shows and Andrew Lloyd Webber 1980s hits which my parents enjoyed, and the offshoot of the tradition of opera, my favorite discipline in the arts. My dad was an avid amateur musical actor and some of my earliest memories are of him learning lines, going to rehearsals, and watching “old” musicals on VHS. My start on the stage was with him (Mr. Bumble, in an impressive costume he handmade) in "Oliver!" - my brother and I were 2 of the 3 smallest orphans in the cast, and I learned just how bad I am at choreography and how depressed I get when a show ends! There is something so engaging about working on music, dance, and words collaboratively. The interaction with the material and your fellow actors, not to mention the audience, is compelling and consuming enough to leave a vacant space in your life when it is completed. I probably won't do much musical theater in the future, but the teamwork and the music/words interface are two of "my favorite things."

Prescott Park performance: The Wizard of Oz

This Sunday night I finally saw a Prescott Park Arts Festival musical performance, and the show couldn't be more appropriate. I have always loved every aspect of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz - the colors, the characters, the music, and how many tiny details became apparent to me with every viewing. Seeing this film recreated as a musical play is a risky business in part because of the numerous details we all love about Oz. Some details like the puff of steam out of the Tin Man's hat (the scariest part of the film for 4-year-old me!) can't easily be recreated in a live performance, and the beloved actors themselves will not be present. Expectations for the live actors, then, are high: they must look and sound enough like the originals not to jar our eyes and ears, but seem authentic on their own merits. Sunday's performance struck a good balance between re-creating the original and reviving the show in an original manner.
Christine Dulong had the "look" of Dorothy, especially at the distance of my table, and her voice was fresh and clean - not at all an affected reproduction of Garland's manner. She is a UNH theater grad and I am very proud! Knate Higgins and Chris Bradley are a bit young for the Scarecrow and Tin Man respectively, if you are comparing them to Ray Bolger and Jack Haley, but in their own right they are good actors and fine dancers, too. Scottie McLaughlin really stood out as the Lion: "tall dark and handsome" with a grand baritone voice and good comedic skills, I hope to see him in many more roles! The older members of the cast were also excellent: Cathy McKay, John Flynn, and Claudia Faulkner as Auntie Em/Glinda, Uncle Henry/Oz/Marvel/etc, and Miss Gulch/The Wicked Witch of the West anchored the show in its many doublings, with plenty of character. Flynn called the winning ticket at the intermission raffle as well - he is an all around showman.
One exciting surprise for me was the sound and orchestral effects. I expected live players in the pit, but because of the excellent sound tech and the versatile keyboards, the pit was represented by a few horns and a keyboard. Many little details of the film were faithfully brought to life through this team's efforts.
Finally, perhaps my favorite aspect of Wizard of Oz: Dorothy's costume (and really, all the principals'). Ms. Dulong had beautiful ruby slippers, and the Scarecrow, Lion, and especially Tin Man sported fantastic costumes and makeup. And Dorothy's dress, black and white gingham in the Kansas scene, became the classic blue when transported to Munchkinland - staying that color for the final scene back in Kansas. I wonder if this was on purpose, to show how Dorothy brought Oz with her?

Opera on the air: Star Edition

This week's opera broadcast include some of my favorite living voices! First up, WFMT is broadcasting Il Postino, from the LA Opera with Placido Domingo as the poet Neruda. This should be on air Saturday July 16 at 1pm ET ("PREFEED: Friday, July 15, 2011 - 1500 ET | LIVE FEED: Saturday, July 16, 2011 - 1300 ET").

WETA is playing Handel's Alcina with a cast headlined by two excellent singers: Anja Harteros (Alcina), and Vesselina Kasarova (Ruggiero). Broadcast at 1pm ET July 16.

Finally, NPR's World of Opera is featuring Ernani, with one of my favorite living basses, Ferruccio Furlanetto, as Silva. (He was an adorable Leporello to Sam Ramey's Giovanni in a memorable 1987 Salzburg Festival performance with Karajan.) The rest of the cast is none too shabby either: Rudy Park (Ernani); Dimitra Theodossiou (Elvira); and Marco De Felice (Don Carlo). WDAV is livestreaming this.

SciAm on vacuums and subways, and a novel I love

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2011/07/11/a-series-of-tubes/ The physics in this post are a bit beyond my level of understanding+ability, but it's well written and exciting to read nonetheless. Thanks Jennifer Ouelette for reminding me of Downsiders - a YA novel (which I loved!) about underground dwellings in NYC.

Star Wars: an opera in 5 acts

Who hasn't thought of Star Wars as a Meyerbeer-style rescue opera?
Ok, maybe that is just the opera geek in me. But the cast and plot have much in common with the grand opera of the 19th century. Hero rescues princess and wins a battle in the struggle against an oppressive empire, amid local color, grand spectacle, and grand music.
Ironically, the music would be one major obstacle in the translation of Star Wars from film epic to grand opera: John Williams doesn't seem likely to write an opera himself or allow his music to be incorporated into one. So a composer taking the story (with rights to use it) would need to create a new musical vocabulary for this piece: something iconic and unique enough to distinguish itself from the film's music, while balancing between operatic and vernacular to reach an audience appropriate to such a fusion of grand art and modern fairy tale. I don't think I could dream in my lifetime of doing Star Wars justice. But maybe someone else out there could.

"Lover's Concerto:" elements of the classical

In the recent book, Beautiful Monsters, Michael Long takes a look at my personal favorite subject area: the relationship between classical and popular elements in music. Long is talking about the classical in pop today, as opposed to pop in classical music or classical "popular" elements such as opera themes. Beautiful Monsters features an encyclopedic dash through modern popular music, with hundreds of pieces referenced in passing. You would do well to read this book next to YouTube, because each reference is complemented by the actual sound material (not all of us have this music at instant mental recall) and the references are frequently cross-referenced.
One piece which I gradually recognized as familiar was "Lover's Concerto" by the Toys. I had first heard this piece as a small child, but not matched the piece to any title (though I still recall most of the lyrics and timbres perfectly) or group name. More recently, I had been stunned to find out that this piece is based on another famous miniature, of a very different era and aesthetic: a minuet by Bach. Duh. The meter is now 4/4, instead of the standard 3/4 of minuets, and in addition to having lyrics unrelated to Bach, the song is complemented by saxophone solos and a girl-group sound typical of the early 1960s.
Long's concern is with the use of the term "concerto," seemingly a misnomer here, to "place" the song in a classical register. At the very beginning of the song, before the band starts, several "concerto" chords on a piano are heard. The song's writers, Linzer and Randel, may indeed have felt "concerto" was foreign enough, and classical enough, to label the song with some exotic flavor, as well as to nod towards the classical origins of the melody. (I am unaware of the story of the artistic choice to use Bach material here in the first place; Wikipedia and allmusic cite the 'Bach' melody as well as the attribution of this piece to Bach, but do not hint at any motivation for the "classical" feel evoked here.)
The structure of the song is very tightly woven together, with the solo-group interplay intersecting with the instruments of the band. While the lyrics seem irrelevant to the title, they are well fit to the notes sung, with few awkward moments. When the saxophone solo takes up the melody during the break, the articulations are preserved from the vocal statement, slurring together the notes to which multi-syllable words are set. Tone painting is mostly avoided, even when dealing with lyrics which address "the rain / which falls," and this seems to avoid the full potential for cliche in a song which can only be heard through cliches.

As the song begins in this live video from the show "Hullabaloo," a bust of (presumably) J.S. Bach is seen in the foreground. The intro to the song features saxophones and a "hook" reminiscent of the Four Seasons, another group produced by the same label and often the same songwriters. This hook does not recur, but the sax scoring continues as a theme throughout. The classical bust as scene-setting reinforces the "novelty song" character of this piece; perhaps audiences were aware of the Bach association, making this scenery the only reference to the actual Bach material. In the personal consumption of the song, the only equivalent was this "Concerto" in the title and the piano chords of the first few bars, after which the "concerto" elements fade away.
"Lover's Concerto" continues to resonate throughout the book, as his many encyclopedic references bounce around and reappear.  Long takes into account many different threads relating to this song: pastoralism, antique elements of the text, and the classical ethos evoked by the title. The great thing for me about classical music and popular music as two complementary bodies of work is the way we can enjoy a good pop song or a fun classical piece at different levels - the structure, the bones are there if you look, regardless of the (often enjoyable) surface material.

7/8 of a college degree: looking back on the major(s)

College has been somewhat of a playground for me, though without the typical drinking and party scene. Academically, I have felt encouraged and ambitious enough to attempt a double major, and complete 2 minors.
My major in music had been a sure thing since no earlier than January of 2008, a month or so before auditioning, and before that, I had expected to major in something basic like Spanish. The music major I chose was a broad specialization – Liberal Studies, the former Undifferentiated option, and designed to revitalize interest at UNH in music history and create opportunities for more custom focuses, like ethnomusicology. The curriculum appealed to me, and the focus of the major seemed less performance-oriented – a plus for a self-taught amateur enthusiast. Once at UNH, I participated in both a lesson studio, and the Liberal Studies symposium group. Both were experiences of great value, and seeing the work of my peers in the history field is always sweetly humbling for me. I may know them from classes and UNH life, but I am always amazed to see the breadth of knowledge, different experience, and devotion they bring to their studies! The Liberal Studies experience– classes, professors, and peers – has seen me through 3 years now of UNH music, and in the last year, has inspired me to look towards graduate study in musicology as the next step in my academic career.
The very first class I attended at UNH (and, unless drivers’ ed counts, my very first classroom experience ever after 12 years of homeschool education) was elementary Italian, with Amy Boylan. My operatic vocabulary, functional but creaky, served me well as I found that already I understood Italian at a high level for this intro class. Professor Boylan suggested I enter Mayder Dravasa’s class the following semester and essentially skip a year’s classes – taking the beginning of 1st year and the end of 2nd year back to back. After this much Italian, I was ready for the UNH in Italy at Ascoli Piceno semester abroad, along with 17 other UNH students and piano professors Chris and Arlene Kies. Combining the classes at UNH with an independent study and my Ascoli classes, I had completed a minor with hardly any effort. My only regret was not paying more attention in Amy’s class when we learned about Italian menus and restaurants. I figured this would never come in handy, not expecting to be in Italy a year later..it would have been very useful!
Spring of 2010 brought me very close to declaring a second major in Linguistics. The subject matter fascinates me and the detailed work of surveys, syntax, and morphology scratched some serious academic itches. To understand accents, dialects, and why words look and sound like they do – the ultimate geek experience! I ultimately decided against the major due to the tiny size of the linguistics department – the music community, though small, is about 10 times the size of linguistics and allows for a little bit more cross-fertilization of ideas. I occasionally fantasize about a graduate degree or second B.A. in linguistics, and applying myself to the study of Italian dialects.
My farthest digression from music started around the same time as my classes in Historical and Comparative Linguistics. I took a class on Earth History with the chair of the Geology department, and again, scratched academic itch. Here was the grand panorama of evolution, plate tectonics, and the solar system. I was hooked. Over summer 2010, I made countless spreadsheets of major requirements, trying to configure a plan which allowed me to graduate on time and still hit the high points of two extremely divergent  disciplines. In the end, class options limited the viability of said plan (and I do feel more competent in the humanities/arts than in sciences – if only I had had this discussion in high school!) and I will graduate with geology as my second minor. Geology, Italian, and linguistics are three fields dear to my heart which I still enjoy keeping up with – and hope to revisit over the years if I succeed in creating an academic career. UNH served me well in offering all these options. I would indeed “major in UNH studies” if there were such an option!

Opera Spotlight: L'Italiana in Algeri, La Boheme, and Handel's Hercules

NPR World of Opera features Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri, with Lawrence Brownlee.

WETA is playing the Castleton Festival's La Bohème

July 9, 2011, 1:00 pm conducted by Lorin Maazel

And Chicago Lyric's broadcast of Hercules (Handel) is on WFMT at 12pm CT (1pm ET).

Mozart's influence: statistical procrastination

I recently completed an online course in Statistics (through UNH's Sociology department). It was, in many ways, the "easiest" class I have ever had, because there was no attendance and I took no notes. There were readings, homework assignments, and quizzes, which did keep me sporadically on my toes, but overall the concept of the class stayed rather remote from my mind. Or so I thought.
Here I am a week later, contemplating the use of statistical methods (some of which, such as regression, I am aware that I never even read about for this class, but may be useful) to assess the influence of Haydn and Mozart on later composers (Beethoven, Schubert perhaps). My plan involves collecting data from piano sonata slow movements (excluding theme-and-variations) such as relative key, melodic contour of the opening phrase,  length, and tempo marking to compare "apples to apples" from Mozart's work to Beethoven's.
Perhaps this is the kind of academic minutia which real scholars dismiss as bean-counting, and I might be better off writing a paper or a piece of my own. I certainly do not know enough about statistics yet to use multi-variate analysis or any of the techniques I have read about recently in books on politics (Why Iowa?: How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process) or broad social science (Natural Experiments of History - excellent book!). But down the road, my little database might provide me with an interesting sandbox for experiments!