Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Heard István Várdai play Bach's Cello Suites 1, 5 and 6 last night at Armory Park Avenue. Impeccable technique and dynamic shading. I thought that he lost the plot in some middle sections of all the suites. Suite 5 was especially moving. The experimental Sarabande--I want to hear it again. The performance took place in the recently refurbished Board of Officers Room. A stunning salon. Wine was served during intermission. The ticket cost only $25. A steal. damp clothes in a crowded bus late spring

Philip Guston, "Shoes," 1972, oil on panel Life got away from me, and so I've not been able to blog it down. So here's catch-up. March 15 evening: GH and I attended a Singapore get-together at P and A's home. I was expecting an informal potluck event, but that showed how out of touch I am with my Singapore friends. A is Singapore's ambassdaor to the UN, and so lived in appropriately well-appointed circumstances. A man took our jackets, another tended to the bar. Yet another took away our dishes after we were done feasting on the buffet dinner. Fortunately P and A were a very down-to-earth couple. Unlike some of the suits there, A was wearing just shirtsleeves. They soon made us feel welcomed. I had not seen P for years, and was pleased to see that she has not changed in appearance or manners, at least not at first re-acquaintance. I met a woman who works for one of the UN bodies, and her husband who teaches management studies at Columbia. There was...

Steep Tea A Traditional Autumn Kasen Renga Started: August 25, 2012 Finished: September 11, 2012 Written by Rachael Briggs and Jee Leong Koh sunset steeps the world in red red maple, apple, bee balm bloom we sip jewel tea the fire temple disappears a watery moon chili dip on a seaweed cracker thesis antithesis crunch oral defence  visiting mum in Syracuse   cherry blossoms soft artillery that liquefies in my hand ... or was it snow? recategorized from 4C to 442  swear unqualified allegiance to ...  (le) poisson rouge  Taka Kigawa  Die Kunst der Fuge  alien fauna of George Street a kangaroo with gears for ears you on the  exercise bike, come share  my yoga mat  can we be Lion and Thunderbolt, Hero and King Dancer? I'm in! Mount Fuji  the dance  before the dance  my skipping stone cavorts between dust and river bottom the moon  cools her feet  in a red basin...

Last Friday, after having dinner at Buvette (French and Italian tapas place in Greenwich Village), I watched the film Teddy Bear with WL, DM and BCH at Film Forum. Directed and co-written by Mads Matthiesen, the movie followed a shy bodybuilder's search for love. Dennis had to leave the house in the Copenhagen suburb that he shared with his possessive mother for Thailand where he found true love after a series of mistrials. The ensemble acting was terrific. Kim Kold was an endearing boy in a superman's body. Elsebeth Steentoft brought a frightening intensity to her role as the dominating mother. She was the emotional blackhole that nothing could fill. As true love Toi, Lamaiporn Hougaard was sweet but not saccharine. Her spirit rippled across her face when she was crossed. WL invited me to hear Taka Kigawa play "The Art of Fugue" last night at (le) Poisson Rouge. Kigawa sounded jerky at the beginning as if he was slightly nervous. The playing was somewhat detached...

This was a while ago: GH and I heard the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on December 11 Sunday, at Alice Tully. The program was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Romantic Sinfonia in C major for Strings and Continuo (1773); Heinrich von Biber's Mystery Sonata No. 10 in G minor for Violin and Continuo, "The Crucifixion" (c. 1674); Georg Philipp Telemann's unusual Concerto in D major for Four Violins (c.1720) and his Suite in G major for Strings and Continuo, "Don Quixote" (c. 1726-30), very picturesque; Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto in G major for Cello, Strings, and Continuo (after 1720) and Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto in E major for Violin, Strings, and Continuo (before 1730), played the least satisfying of all the pieces in the program. I particularly enjoyed the playing of Amy Lee, who seemed to secure a rich tone from her violin consistently. Ida Kavafian, who played in most of the pieces, took a mercurial delight in fiendish technique...

In last night's Passio-Compassio , the Bach rearrangements by Music Director Vladimir Ivanoff sounded unconvincing to my ears. The string quartet, saxophones, bass clarinet, Arabic nay and qanun, Turkish ney, kanun and kemence, harpsichord, organ and frame drums, playing excerpts from Bach's Passions,  sounded like a garage jam session. Bach's music was too strict, too self-contained, to admit foreign influences easily. When the music turned more improvisatory, more open-ended, as in the Syrian Orthodox chants and traditional Turkish songs, the different musical traditions melded into a sparkling stream. The experience taught me the usefulness of open forms in accommodating vastly different worlds: jazz improvisations, Arabic musical ornamentation, mystical refrains. The Lebanese contralto Fadia el-Hage sang beautifully in the first half of the program. The Syrian chants were intricately embroidered by her warm yet brilliant voice. Particularly memorable was her rendition...

Last Wednesday, GH and I heard the London Symphony Orchestra, led by Sir Colin Davis, performed an all-Sibelius program at Carnegie Hall. Nikolaj Znaider soloed in the Violin Concerto in D minor, and he was terrific, warm and delicate in the quiet passages. I have his performance of Elgar's Violin Concerto on my iPad, and listen to it over and over again. For some reason I did not care so much for Symphony No. 2 performed after the intermission. It was a rather more unconventional program last night at Alice Tully. A part of White Light Festival, "A Homage to J. S. Bach" looked at how Russian composers have been influenced by Bach's musical forms while using a modern tonal idiom. The program was headlined by Gidon Kremer, who played with beautiful intonation a chaconne from one of Bach's partitas. I also enjoyed very much Shostakovich's Piano Trio 2, which Kremer played with cellist Giedre Dirvanauskaite and pianist Andrius Zlabys, both from Lithuania. Kreme...

Last night, the New York Philharmonic performance of Brahms' Symphony No. 3 sounded wonderfully fresh. The first movement was particularly dynamic. I did not care for the thick orchestral textures of movements two and three, but the last was again eloquent. The sun rose majestically, and the effect just fell short of the sublime, because the last part was played a little too softly. I was sleepy throughout the Berg violin concerto, but electrified by the Brahms after the intermission. It reminded me why I attend actual concerts instead of listening to a CD at home. The program began with Bach's Concerto for Two Violins in D minor. Frank Peter Zimmermann and Alan Gilbert made a well-matched pair of soloists. TB was thrilled to hear the piece because she has been working on it with her music teacher, L, whom GH and I met that evening. L applauded the Bach enthusiastically and seemed to like the Brahm too. After the concert, he recited to me the opening of The Canterbury Tales ....

That’s What Comes From Being Whenever I write you it blends & morphs into so many others. That’s what comes from being informal, I guess. Or not cool. Or erotic. —Emily Critchley, “When I say I believe women…” Or historical. Or wayward. Or a river. Or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Or an all-boys school. Or not possible. Or lucky to be taken up by women without children. Or with children. Or stricken by the chicken pox at 17. Or a big fan of Hainanese chicken rice, tender white meat or roasted drumstick, dipped in a hot chilli sauce with garlic. Or fanatic. Or unable to speak in tongues. Or a coward who reads Nietzsche for fun. Or a gay teacher at an all-girls school. Or listening to Bach on the bus this week. Or a demilitarized zone. Or a poet. Fill in the blank. Or circle. Or formal.

LW gave me her ticket to hear the young French pianist David Fray last night, telling me I was in for an Experience. She heard him playing a Bach concerto, and likened his playing to taking a lovely stroll through the park. Only the French, she insisted, could take one on such a walk. Not any American. Pumped with excitement, I sat in Zankel Hall with AG, MC and her husband. The pianist walked in rather awkwardly, and so added charm to his glamorous good looks. Hunched over the piano, he banged out Schubert's Allegretto in C Minor and Allegretto from Klavierstücke , before attacking the German's Four Impromptus . Although there were passages of great delicacy, I felt that the pianist was not entirely at ease with the Romantic passion of the pieces. The playing was tentative, and then, as if to make-up for it, overly insistent. A different pianist returned after the intermission to play Bach's Partita No. 6 in E minor . It was as if the "objective" quality of ...

Sacred music was the order of last evening at Alice Tully Hall. As part of the White Light Festival, the Latvian National Choir, conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste and accompanied by the Orchestra of St. Luke's from NYC, sang Bach's motets Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (c. 1726-27) and Komm, Jesu, Komm! (before 1732). According to the program notes, "unlike the cantatas, with their many recitatives, arias, and duets, the motets entail choral music throughout." The highlight of the evening was the U.S. premieres of two of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt's works. He composed Stabat Mater in 1985 for three voices and string trio, but rescored it for mixed chorus and string orchestra, the version GH and I heard last night. The work began with a piercing cry "Ah!" and ended with a humble assent "Amen." Its minimalist style was both postmodernist and medieval. After hearing it, I want to write a poem about Mary, Mother of God, for my next book Infinite Var...

The Chinatown bus took only four hours to pull into South Station. It was easy getting to Hotel 140, on Clarendon Street, by subway. When SK arrived, from Montreal, we walked a couple of blocks to Copley Square. We ate a simple lunch and dipped our legs into the fountain. SK is a now a proud homeowner, with his partner, in Paris. We both liked the Boston Public Library's McKim Building very much. Built at the end of the nineteenth century. it was a library in a palace. The entrance hall had a vaulted ceiling, on which were lettered the names of thirty famous Bostonians. A deep triumphal arch connected the entrance hall to the main staircase. The steps were made of ivory gray Echaillon marble, mottled with fossil shells. The walls were a warm yellow Siena. From the landing, through a big window, the courtyard and pool could be taken in. In the Sargent gallery, the American painter decorated its walls with the mural sequence Triumph of Religion . Many of the murals featured beaut...

Thomas Forrest Kelly, a professor of Music at Harvard, spoke on Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, in particular, No. 3, this afternoon. The talk, held in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, was part of the Insights Series organized by the New York Philharmonic, and featured musicians from that orchestra as well as The Julliard School. As requested by Lorin Maazel, who is conducting his final season, the NYP is playing all six of the Concertos.  Kelly showed some great slides of the manuscript which Bach presented to the Musgrave of Brandenburg. His talk was insightful (for someone like me, at least) and refreshingly irreverent, especially towards Bach's influences, Corelli and Vivaldi. He explained the ritornella , and how its parts were mixed and recombined with increasing sophistication as the concerto developed. In Corelli, the orchestra played the tune while the soloist played the fancy stuff. Vivaldi, in developing the concerto, gave the soloist, as well as the orchestra, a tune....

A friend, Jane McKinley, is the musical director of The Dryden Ensemble, which specializes  in performing 17th and 18th century music on period instruments. The group was playing an all Bach program in Princeton this afternoon, and so I hopped onto the New Jersey Transit from Penn Station, and was in the university town in about 80 minutes. I had planned time to visit the Princeton University Art Museum before the concert. It is a small teaching museum that is also open to the public, and free. I did not care very much for its small collection of 16th-18th century European (many Dutch) paintings, although I liked Abraham Bloemaert's The Four Evangelists (1612-15) for its inquiring lion looking so incongruous beneath the table.  In the 19th to mid-20th century section, I was very taken by Gabriele Munter's  Self-Portrait in front of an Easel , and by Edouard Vuillard's gorgeous Woman in an Interior (Madame Hessel at Les Clayes) . The lower galleries held collections of anci...

When I was an evangelical Christian, of the four gospels, the one I loved most was John's. Sure, Mark writes the tautest plot, Matthew charms with his Christmas story, and Luke betrays the compassion of a doctor for the sick. But John, in the most argumentative and dramatic of the gospels, unveils the Power and the Glory: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. And that gospel-in-a-nutshell, that bribe disguised as a gift of love, that verse memorized in Sunday School and thrust into the faces of unbelievers: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. So it was with some shock I heard John’s words again, in Bach’s Passion, and realized how anti-semitic the gospel is. The crowd, repeatedly called “th...

On Saturday I heard my friend, Greg Bynum, play his recorder as a guest with the Brooklyn Baroque at the Morris-Jumel Mansion. The details of the concert program are below. Greg was the soloist in Boismortier’s Sonata in G Major for Recorder and Continuo. I thought his playing was particularly fine in that sonata, natural and sweet. The soprano, Elizabeth Baber, sang the Bach and Telemann much better than the Scarlatti, to my untrained ears. Her voice was controlled and expressive, her interpretation of the Germans dramatic and persuasive. I thought, with her flowing blond hair and strong features, she looked like a Rhine Maiden. Greg’s playing in the Telemann matched her expression and intensity. I really like the Telemann piece, with its lurching rhythm in the opening lines. Saturday night ended with another Gregg, Araki, on a very different note. Having enjoyed his well-directed "Mysterious Skin," I entertained some hopes of the earlier "Doom Generation." It was ...