For anyone expecting a response from me today, I am sorry to have to report that I am sick. Horrible chills and light-headedness and an afternoon spent shuddering under the covers, in robe and many layers of pajamas, but no sleep. Not looking for your pity; it’s just that I know I promised a bunch of you I would get back to you today, as soon as I finished recording tomorrow morning’s show (“Sweetness and Light”) for KWAX. Miraculously, I was able to get it in. I wonder if Esa-Pekka Salonen cast the runes and put the whammy on me for my scathing review of his Sibelius that I posted earlier this week? In any case, I am not ignoring you! I’ve just been too active and not getting enough sleep, and now I’m paying for it. I’ll respond as soon as I am feeling up to it. My weekend shows will air as scheduled, at the times below. Thank you for your patience, and have a great weekend!
Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EASTERN)
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EASTERN)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EASTERN)
Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a radio host in possession of a weekly film music show must be in want of a good theme. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we eschew the usual fare of Vikings, pirates, and dinosaurs, to enter the world of Jane Austen.
We’ll hear Rachel Portman’s Academy Award winning score for “Emma” (1996), Patrick Doyle’s music for “Sense and Sensibility” (1995), and selections from two versions of “Pride and Prejudice,” with music by Carl Davis (1995) and Dario Marianelli (2005).
Not only do Austen adaptations sport amazing casts, the scores attract some of classical music’s star performers. Listen in for contributions by soprano Jane Eaglen, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and fortepianist Melvyn Tan.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of – at least according to “Mansfield Park.” The next best is a playlist assembled from Jane Austen movies. There’s an urgency for Regency this week on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EASTERN)
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EASTERN)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EASTERN)
Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!
Today is the birthday of William H. Seward, one-time governor of New York, United States senator, and Secretary of State under Lincoln, part of Lincoln’s “team of rivals,” who endures in the minds of most Americans, if they remember him at all, for his purchase of Alaska, widely lampooned at the time as “Seward’s folly.”
Seward was more overtly radical than Lincoln, as a senator in the 1840s and ‘50s already outspokenly anti-slavery and pro-Black rights. At a time when it was illegal to harbor escaped slaves in New York, his house was a stop on the Underground Railroad and he was instrumental in setting up Harriet Tubman in a permanent residence down the street.
Lincoln and Seward grew unexpectedly close as they put their heads together and drew on the brain trust of their uneasy cohort, with its varying political perspectives, in order to navigate a civil war and preserve the Union.
There are those who hated what they stood for. Seward was already bedridden, the result of a carriage accident, on the night of Lincoln’s assassination. On April 14, 1865, an assailant entered the Seward home to make a bloody attempt on his life. Many serious injuries resulted, including to members of the Seward family. A son, Frederick, had his skull staved with a pistol. (He was in a coma for two months, but ultimately recovered.) Two other sons, Andrew and William, were stabbed. A daughter, Fanny, was also attacked. Eight people in all were injured in the attempt, part of a broader plot to take out the three senior members of the Executive Branch. (A third conspirator was to have attacked Vice President Andrew Johnson, but lost his nerve.) Seward, who was stabbed five times in the face, neck, and chest, survived, protected in part by a brace he wore as he was convalescing from the carriage accident. Those in the house who escaped physical harm suffered from the shock of the assault. Seward’s wife died of a heart attack not long after, and the family lived with the emotional trauma for many years.
I was at a wedding last summer in Auburn, New York, when I learned that Seward’s house, now a museum, was only a few blocks from where I was staying. Of course, I had to check it out. I had played Seward in a school play when I was in the fourth grade.
Up the side steps I sauntered and opened the door into the reception area, and before my eyes could adjust, I heard, “Aren’t you Ross Amico?” Naturally, I was surprised. Had my early triumph as an actor preceded me?
No, it turns out that one of my listeners in the Princeton area happened to be visiting Auburn and was friends with one of the docents. She had recognized my voice as I entered. Elocution proved mightier than my Seward.
It was a dreary day last Thursday, but a great pleasure to finally meet up with sportswriter Brad Wilson for the first time at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Brad’s beat is my old stomping grounds of the Lehigh Valley and across the river in Warren and Hunterdon Counties.
I wish I could say I derived as much pleasure from Esa-Pekka Salonen’s performance of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Sadly, as someone who loves this symphony very much and who has heard it performed many times, I thought Salonen really missed the ball on this one (I promise, my only sports analogy in this write-up). At no point did I feel moved or inspired, nor did I get any sense of the conductor’s understanding of the tectonic movement or spatial relationships in the piece. I didn’t think it possible not to be cheered by the opening “sunrise” of French horns and flutes, nor do I think I have ever heard the plangent woodwinds in the third movement (if we regard it as a four-movement symphony), like forlorn waterfowl, without them tugging at my heartstrings.
There should be a sense of mounting suspense, dread even, as the ground begins to shift into the inexorable accelerando between the first two movements (which are connected). Ideally, it should carry all the thrill and terror of the sublime, but here I did not sense that it was undertaken with any great care. Rather, like most of the performance, it was simply tossed off, blithely and unconvincingly.
Even in the magnificent last movement, it was like stuff just happened. In more satisfying performances (which is to say, probably just about every other performance I’ve ever heard), everything comes together in its rough-hewn way and conductors succeed in making it sound as if every component belongs, relates, and makes some kind of coherent sense. Despite his vast experience with this composer, Salonen did not – at least for me. Maybe it was just I who was having an off-night, but I did not like it, and nothing is as depressing as having a piece of music you love and know very well not take flight.
I hasten to add, I realize the performance may not have impressed everyone the same way. At the end of the six monolithic chords that bring the symphony to a close, people around me burst into wild applause and the guy in front of me actually whooped, even as it took everything in my power to conjure a golf-clap. I didn’t want it to come across as if I don’t love the composer or don’t appreciate the orchestra’s efforts. But Salonen. Oy vey. I don’t know what people want from their Sibelius, but I expect more.
I searched for some online reviews, to make sure I wasn’t taking crazy pills, and I came across this one in which every one of the reviewer’s impressions run counter to my own. The stuff he dismisses about the concert, I enjoyed, and the stuff I disliked, he lauded to Pohjola and back. Believe me, I would have settled for “majestic stateliness.”
If there was a Philadelphia Inquirer review, I could not find it and wouldn’t be able to read it anyway, unless forwarded to me, because it would be paywalled (and in any case probably mostly worthless).
It’s unusual for Philadelphia to program the same piece two years in a row, but they did so with the Sibelius 5th. Frankly, I thought Dalia Stasevska’s performance last year was head and shoulders over what I heard Thursday night – nimble, thrilling, and intelligently judged. Even Don Liuzzi was more electrifying on the timpani. This is not a reflection on his playing on Thursday, but a musician has to work within the overall design of a conductor’s interpretation, such that it is. Salonen’s brass had some good moments with the big tune (Sibelius’ “swan theme”) in the last movement, but nothing seemed to fit together or flow organically – unusual for a conductor of his experience with this most organic of composers – or, at the very least, generate some tension and release.
Salonen is often characterized as “a modernist.” I don’t care about that. The mature Sibelius is not exactly the most sentimental composer. I would be perfectly satisfied if he had allowed the architecture of the music to simply speak for itself. But it was as if he had no idea of its magnificent layout. Rather, it was like he was flipping through a magazine (Architectural Digest?) in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. The performance, to me, just felt uninvolved, and by extension uninvolving. Maybe he’s just conducted it too many times.
Steven Stucky’s “Radical Light,” which opened the program, was also just kind of there. Salonen commissioned the work, back during his days as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, to be included on a program between Sibelius’ 4th and 7th Symphonies. On Thursday, it just came off as a time-killer. Sure, it paid tribute to Sibelius by aping some of his mannerisms and textures, but I couldn’t help but think how much more satisfying it would have been had the concert just opened with the 7th Symphony or “Tapiola.”
The highlight of the evening was Salonen’s own “kínēma” (all lower case) for clarinet and orchestra, which even at 30 minutes I found engaging and wonderfully played. Ricardo Morales, the orchestra’s charismatic principal clarinet, was the soloist. I confess I was pleasantly surprised, as I own a few recordings of Salonen’s own music, and while I find it agreeable enough to just go with it if I’m in the right mood, this piece was by far the most immediately ingratiating of anything of his I have ever heard.
I want to make it clear that I don’t dislike Salonen, and I wish him all the best in conducting “Daphnis and Chloe” in Philadelphia this week. Even Pierre Boulez knew how to pull off a good performance of Ravel.
Likewise, none of this is intended as a reflection on Brad, who was kind enough to secure our tickets. He and I have enjoyed a kind of radio and Facebook messaging friendship for a good number of years now. His musical knowledge is vast and his tastes are diverse (ranging from Bach to Elliot Carter), and his observations and recommendations are always valued. From his comments that night, I gather he liked the Sibelius. I don’t have the gift of diplomacy, so I was hesitant to start in, knowing that whatever I had to say would likely blossom into a rant.
And what do I know? Salonen is Finnish (like the composer) and he has decades of experience interpreting this music. Me? I’m just a grouch. Maybe I should have eaten something closer to the start of the concert. But I love Sibelius and I love this symphony, and I have a pretty good idea of when somebody gets it right. Even Simon Rattle, with his bewildering obsession with whispered pianissimos, got it when he conducted it in Philly in 1999. Salonen was like Väinämöinen, the star-crossed wizard of the Kalevala, on one of his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.
And dammit, the program notes were weak too!
This amused me: Dave Hurwitz’s recollection of three terrible concerts. Hurwitz can be an acquired taste, but once you acquire it, he’s like an amusing, outspoken friend. I agree with him that live music concerts, even at their worst, can be wonderful. Also that there can be a certain satisfaction to be found in tearing the bad ones apart.
I would have had this posted days ago, but I was interrupted by a phone call, like the poet Coleridge, distracted by a knock at the door in the middle of setting down the lines for “Kubla Khan,” which had come to him in a dream; and then when he returned, he found he couldn’t pick up the thread. However, unlike Coleridge, this humble review is unlikely to be included in anthologies of English literature in 200 years, even as society inevitably continues to deteriorate.
As a disturbing addendum to yesterday’s post about “The Mikado,” written in honor of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s birthday: the same friend with whom I enjoyed a volley of favorite Gilbert & Sullivan YouTube videos last week wrote overnight to remind me that, in the case of Ko-Ko the Lord High Executioner’s famous “list” song – in which he catalogues those “society offenders who never would be missed” – absent from modern productions is the line, “There’s the n***** serenader and others of his race… I’ve got them on the list!”
I remember, even after the lyric had been altered, as it had been by the time of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company recording through which I first encountered the work when I was in high school, to “the banjo serenader and others of his race,” that I found it curiously jangling. What race could possibly be meant? Sure, “The Mikado” was written in 1885, when everyone would have been familiar with minstrel shows and the songs of Stephen Foster, with all their banjo strumming, but even a hundred years later, as a teenager, I knew precisely.
Of course, we can deflect it onto the character of Ko-Ko – not everything a character says necessarily reflects the attitudes or beliefs of its author (in this case, W.S. Gilbert) – but considering everything else on the list is calculated to provoke a titter, its out-of-left-field inclusion strikes a sour note indeed.
Perhaps “others of his race” is now to be taken figuratively, as in any kind of person who might play the banjo? I think it requires some seriously gymnastic denial to contort from the original line and arrive at that conclusion.
What I find especially poignant about my friend’s note is that he alludes to his friendship with Henry Varlack, long-time radio personality at the late, lamented WFLN, for 50 years Philadelphia’s full-time classical music station.
My friend recalls, “Oddly enough…when I visited Henry Varlack… after he’d retired from even the tour business… and was approaching the end… he always sang it: ‘You know… it’s the n***** serenader and the others of his race… and the prohibitionist. I’ve got them on the list. I’ve got them on the list.’
“I was always extremely saddened by him singing these verses… but… in retrospect… I realize that he might’ve known that I was the only person in the room who understood the historical context of the lyrics, as none of the other employees had ever listened to Henry as a classical D.J.
“It still disturbs me though… that these lyrics were running through his head in the weeks before died.
“Henry lived through the height of racism.”
Of course, Varlack did not grow up in the age of W.S. Gilbert or the minstrel show, but even in the ‘50s and ’60s, there’s no doubt he saw, and likely experienced, a lot of nastiness.
It makes me sad to think of Henry, who was always a hero of mine, a disembodied friend in the middle of the night, whose distinctive voice introduced so much of the music most meaningful to me, ever having been the object of hatred or discrimination.
The funny thing is, I listened to him for years before I ever even learned that he was black. A true case of race being skin deep. In what way would it ever be acceptable to demean this man, or anyone like him?
By the way, Henry was also a baseball scout. I know I’ve written about him once or twice before. Here’s a post from 2019.
Varlack died in 2006 at the age of 65. His remains were interred at St. Clement’s Church in Philadelphia. Rest his beautiful soul.
The “little list” lyric was not changed until 1948. Henry would have been 7 years-old. This is an example of why it’s so important for history not to be erased.
Here’s a 1926 recording with the original lyric:
It is possible, I suppose – and I hope it is the case – that W.S. Gilbert, with his education and razor wit, could have been railing against the figure of the Negro minstrel – a white man in blackface, twanging on the banjo – an image so prevalent in those days.
Gilbert, I so want to believe in you.
But why, then, use the word again later in the opera? In “A More Humane Mikado,” the original lyrics describe a lady given to modifying her appearance excessively (as the Mikado perceives) receiving the punishment of being “blacked like a n***** with permanent walnut juice.”
I would hope that that is a line that never would be missed. You would never hear it sung that way today. Even so, it’s important that it is remembered. These may have been cases of casual racism in the society in which they were bandied, but from our vantage in the 21st century, these things still matter.
