Wu Wei

Hearing Klezmer in Vilnius

During my moving in, in August, I spotted a 4 day festival of Klezmer Music in Vilnius, so off I went. It's good to see Jewish life coming back to Vilnius. What is Klezmer? Go here (wikipedia) and here for when I met it by chance in Oxford.

A friend pointed out that it was being held in a courtyard very close to where the Jews had been rounded up in the war.  But obviously this was a much happier occasion, with good weather, lots of young people and kids (skinheads clearly didn't understand what klezmer was), and there was food and beer.  

The first night there was a home grown Klezmer band, plus an American trumpeter.  It was mostly dance music and everybody hopped around on the grass.  There were seats but they had long been filled. It was really good.

The second night was not so lively, mostly rather formal singers singing in Yiddish rather seriously. In the photos, you can see a rather small man, paired with a rather tall woman.  The songs were funny, but the pairing made it even funnier.  But at the end a Russian woman singer was very good at working the crowd and had us singing along anyway. By then it was more like a Saturday night in a Russian restaurant where everybody sang popular songs.  Photos here.

The third night was some new composition in the style of modern music, too modern for me.  The US trumpeter ended by saying that the piece had been the most difficult he had ever played.  I left early.

I had to miss the fourth night,  which was a shame, when the band of the first night came back. 

More Divine than Human

This was the rather pretentious title of a concert I went to in Oxford, last time I was home.  It was  held in Christ Church Cathedral, featuring the choir of the same Cathedral.

             

I thought it  best to make the most of the choral music while I could, since it is one of the specially English things I like and haven't really found it done anywhere else.  I also like early music* and the programme promised Music from the Eton Choirbook with two works from the 15th century, so I was even organised enough to book a ticket in advance.  Unfortunately the seat I got did not have a very view (hey it's music, what does that matter).  Nevertheless, between the pillars I got an amusing view of the choristers in their red surplices,  because the only two I could really see, were such a contrast: one, tall with blonde hair, old enough for his voice to be breaking soon, and the other, clearly half his size, Japanese, with a shock of black spiky hair; both of them singing soprano.  Yet more cultural diversity.

The conductor's introductory  remarks were also interesting.  Mark Stevenson had himself been a chorister at Christ Church Cathedral  and contrasted his own experience with complex modern music when he was young an, the more simple music he now preferred,  with the complexity of the period just before Henry VIII came to the throne (when the music for the concert had been written) with the simplicity that came to church music with the Reformation.

Certainly the music was fabulous, in that rich polyphonic style also famous in Georgia (though I haven't heard any church music, only ordinary people singing traditional songs).  In the interval I rushed out to get the CD.

I was more sceptical about the second half which promised to be modern.  It was Howard Goodall's Eternal Light - A Requiem. At first, I was not impressed.  The explanation that it was a combination of choral music and dance confused me.  The Latin and English muddled me. But then I got drawn in:  the single voice singing:

I have to believe
That you still exist
Somewhere,
That you still watch me
Sometimes,
That you still love me
Somehow.

I have to believe
That life has meaning
Somehow,
That I am useful here
Sometimes
That I make small differences
Somewhere.

I have to believe
That I need to stay here
For some time,
That all this teaches me
Something.
So that I can meet you again
Somewhere.

was just so beautiful in the church.  Even apart from the religious meaning, there are so many other meanings as well: parents, work, lost lovers.  I found the humility in "sometimes I make small differences somewhere" so moving.  

The music continued with an arrangement of Lead Kindly Light which took me back to my hymn singing days as a child: my grandfather, a churchwarden, frequently sang hymns in our house and we children were all sent to church and Sunday school.

It followed with a Lachrymosa

Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there - I did not die. 

And near the end, another single voice:

Drop, drop, slow tears
....
Drown all my faults and fears
Nor let his eye
See sin, but through my tears.

I was so moved I forgot to buy the CD.  But then I'm not sure church music works well away from the church environment.  Listening on an iPod in an aeroplane does not have the quiet still atmosphere of a church.

*While working in Kiev I discovered that early music there began with Purcell, who was unknown apparently. It was a bit disappointing to someone brought up thinking Purcell was, well not exactly modern, but certainly not meriting the title "early", when I was expecting something from maybe the 14th century.

Mezzo doesn't get it

Mezzo "your favourite music tv channel" offers a free newsletter. 

Today (24th) I got the March version, advertising programmes on 19, 22 and 24 March.  Eventually I found the only programme I could probably watch on 27.

Surely if you are going to bother having a March newletter it should be sent out at the beginning of the month not the end.

Theremin

Got back to Tbilisi at 4 and slept till 1.  Got into my usual weekend listening to Mezzo and reading the Economist.

Today Mezzo doesn't seem to be having its usual repeats.  I looked up to see what looked like an arthritic hand conducting the music. But at the back of the octet,  it wasn't in the right place for conducting, and it kept flicking it's fingers about as if it was playing an invisible stringed instrument.  Eventually the camera panned to show a young woman attached to the hand, with another hand doing similar but different strange movements. Finally I connected this with the part of the music that consisted of  high pitched eerie sounds, but rather expressive, and not really "electronic".

You can read about the theremin on Wikipedia here.  It seems it was the first electronic musical instrument and is still popular now, though I must say I had never heard of it.  It was invented by a Russian, know as Leon Theremin in America, who has his own curious story.  He died this year on November 3.

Here is how it works (from Wikipedia)

The controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas which sense the position of the player's hands and control radio frequency oscillator(s) for frequency with one hand, and volume with the other. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker. The theremin is an electrophone, a subset of the quintephone family.

To play, the player moves his or her hands around the antennas, controlling frequency (pitch) and amplitude (volume).

The theremin is associated with an "eerie" sound, which has led to its use in movie soundtracks such as those in Spellbound, The Lost Weekend, and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Theremins are also used in art music (especially avant-garde and 20th century "new music") and in popular music genres such as rock.

Back to more usual subjects soon.

Technorati Tags: theremin, electronic music

A visit to the Opera

I'd been trying to get a moment to get tickets for the "International Festival" of concert music last week in Tbilisi, but had been exhausted by non-stop training of bank officials and journalists.

So on Monday when one of my local colleagues asked whether I wanted to go to a concert, I said yes, even though he described it as some sort of end of term concert for some students, of which one was a member of his (extended) family.

So I arrived at the Opera with him, his mum and dad to sit in a loge (since I never sit in boxes in theatres in England, I always think of them as loges, or perhaps I should spell it lozhes) overlooking a completely full house, at the final concert of this "International Festival".  My colleague was also surprised at such a grand occasion, instead of a school concert.  Had he known he would have chickened out, especially as he hates classical music, opera and sitting still for hours.

The music was Mozart and Rossini, but the conductor, orchestra, chorus, and soloists were all Georgian.  Does  playing Mozart and Rossini make it international?  Maybe I missed something.

The students survived the ordeal and gave quite presentable performances.  My colleague's brother in law did the bass solo and we all applauded him. His five year old daughter enjoyed getting dressed up in her beautiful new dress and practising her two words of English. 

I asked about the conductor, (for once not a family relative) Vakhtang Kakhidze, as he had his own rather striking way of conducting.  One of the soloists had to back off rather as one of his stabbing gestures to the first violin nearly stabbed her. Even more remarkable was his coat.  It was too long to be a jacket and certainly no tail coat.  In fact it was a mixture of an academic gown, but fastened at the front, and an artist's smock, with special shoulder pleats to allow for violent shoulder and arm movements I suppose. It looked like it had had rather a lot of wear. On the opera website here his photo shows him younger and less grey, a bit like his coat must have been originally.

It seems he is very famous.  For me it was his coat not the music that made him famous.

What is it about music festivals and mud?

Glastonbury mud seems to have nothing on this music festival in Russia:

Technorati Tags: music festival, mud, russia

Ashton's ballets in Tbilisi

So today I went to the ballet for the first time. Well first time in Tbilisi, I'm not quite that uncultured.

Connections got us a front seat at the 1st loge.
It was billed as Frederic Ashton's ballets, and since none of us were ballet buffs we weren't sure what that would mean in practice.

The opera and ballet theatre has seen better days, and seats are still cheap. Although the auditorium is quite quite small on plan it has 5 galleries of seating above the stalls, so holds quite a few people. It was practically full for the last day of the 3-day performance. It was a matinee, so full of children reasonably well behaved given it wasn't a children's programme.

We got "A Birthday Offering" in Act I, pas de deux from Thais, Sylvia and La Chatte in Act II and the full Marguerite and Armand in Act III.

Thais was very sexy, as required by the story of a religious fanatic who tries to rescue a courtesan. Sylvia more classical, as a Nymph of Diana, accompanied by a more down to earth male dancer. He dispensed with tights revealing nobbly knees, not enhanced by supposed hunting kneeboots of an unfortunate purple and beige colour, making them look more like rugby socks. A hairy chest revealed by a modification of the tarzan costume, (no leopard skin but the usual one shoulder exposed) did not improve the impression. In La Chatte, a rather appealing cat stretched and prowled but was let down by a late arrival (it seemed to me anyway) of the radar controlled mouse. In order to keep up with the music, she had already leapt on the chair and "screamed", eventually jumping down in a tizz when the mouse finally appeared. The mouse got a special "bow" from the rest of the cast at the end. In case you are wondering why this was necessary, the full title is La Chatte metamorphosee en femme.

The theatre outside the auditorium is very dark and dull: no photographs of previous performances, no proper bar, nowhere to promenade, to see and be seen. Although it was a matinee, we managed to find a bottle of wine, but when we went back for more, it was the only one, so one of us had to go without. Not recommended!

The third Act was Marguerite and Armand, originally written for Nureyev and Fonteyn. It seemed it had "died" with them and only recently been revived for other artists. I can't say what it must have been like with the originals but Nina Ananiashvili and Vasil Akhmeteli were fantastic.

The performance's only bad point was when I got home and found my phone had vanished. I dashed back with a colleague and eventually got in round the back way involving coming on stage, back into the auditorium. Luckily the phone was still under the seat. On the way out again we found the photo exhibition on a wall backstage (a funny place to put it).

Checking facts on the internet to write this, I found this interesting snippet about Frederic Ashton here:

He had a sense of humor in person to match the one he displayed on the dance stage, and among those who enjoyed it was Queen Elizabeth II, whom he once taught to dance the tango. Ashton could mimic various well-known British personalities including the queen, who, it is said, retaliated with an Ashton imitation of her own when she heard about his routine.

Technorati Tags: ballet, Frederic Ashton, Tbilisi

Musical life in the Soviet Union

Just been watching a strange programme on Mezzo, the French music channel. It was a retrospective on musicians' lives in the Soviet Union, with lots of old film:

a clip of young Stalin in colour, looking so like a robot it is hard to believe he is not a prop in an Eisenstein film; more clips showing cheering or adoring workers shouting "Stalin"

a clip of a whole orchestra of eight year old girls playing violins, as an example of the excellent musical education;

an explanation of why Shostakovich agreed to work with the Soviet regime (to help other artists)

At first it was hard to follow and I wasn't concentrating either on the Russian or the French subtitles, which seemed to be showing the standard Soviet propaganda. Today it just seems laughable or pathetic. Then I began to listen more carefully.

The Russian narrator produced the following anecdote about a rehearsal in America of a Shostakovich symphony (the 4th, 2nd movement?) where a tune on the percussion resembled to westerners the clip clop of a horse and the violinists began to laugh. The narrator gave another explanation from the composer, himself: it was a tune from the prison, a prisoner tapping on the pipes to communicate with someone else, to transmit a message. Different interpretations, from different cultures. Certainly no laughing matter.

Also the narrator showed the frequent Kafkaesque situations musicians found themselves in. Asked to authorise a concert of the first symphony of Schnittke, Khrennikov, the Secretary of the Composers Union refused to answer Schnittke except "how can I authorise what I have not forbidden", knowing perfectly well what he was doing, and that was the end of the beginning of Schnittke's career. Perhaps now, Schnittke is better known than Khrennikov.


Technorati Tags: Soviet Union, Mezzo, music

Settling in

After the last two years camping successfully in Pristina, Belgrade, and Sarajevo, with even some short periods spend in Oxford, it's strange to be "settling down" in Tbilisi.  It's a feeling of "not at home" that comes with when you don't have the familiarity of arriving in a place where you know how to cope with all the everyday requirements of life. 

The unusual cold weather and lack of external meetings has had us holed-up (looks wrong but no other ideas on how to spell it) in the office all day. In the evenings it's colder, icier and easier just to go home and watch the telly.  Pretty much like I did in Lithuania when we first moved there, when working out what I was supposed to be doing all day, was enough to cope with, without unfamiliarity as well.

On my way home, in the supermarket, I found myself feeling a sort of homesickness when I found a pair of rubber gloves labelled in Lithuanian. At least I could read the labels and instructions.  The words maisto prekes on the rubbish bags brought back memories of the old Soviet style ordinary food shops selling not much, but just enough, for everyday things.  They were long gone in Vilnius by the time I left.  In my street are three or four shops like the old maisto prekes, with similar but all slightly different stocks.  As in Soviet days you need to visit them all to see what they have at the moment.  I was befriended by the lady in one, who explains everything to me in simple Russian, making me feel a bit like an imbecile. At least she doesn't feel the need to shout, like the British do at foreigners, believing that if you say something loudly, foreigners will understand.  She has a fish sign outside, which made me curious, but I didn't fancy any of the smoked mackerel or sprats she had at the moment. I wonder if she will ever have fresh fish, since Tbilisi is quite a way from the sea.

Life is full of small wins. In our block, even in freezing weather, washing is dried on a rack extending out from the balcony over the street below.  The rack has several wires on which you peg the clothes, and then push each wire away from the building.  Unfortunately it is easier to push the wire away than to get it back.  I was contemplating whether it was necessary to drag myself over the balcony to reach the wire.  Assessing the variety of implements on the balcony, I came across what passes in ex-Soviet countries for a floor mop.  It consists of something like a big long-handled window wiper, which is used with a large filthy cloth, which spreads water and dirt evenly over the floor, in a travesty of cleaning the floor.  Usually the cloth is the same one used for mopping up muddy footprints inside the building in wet or snowy weather.  You can tell whether an employer is really as modern as he thinks he is, by whether this floor mop is in use in his building.  You may be sure that this will never be used in my home, at least not for this purpose.  It does have a perfectly good use however to drag the washing back within reach of the balcony. 

In homes that are adequately heated, why do people not dry their clothes on the radiators in cold weather?  I know, I know, where does all that water go?  Same place as all the hot air: out the leaking windows, just like in the UK.

At lunchtime I walked up and down the street looking for one of the small family bakeries that make fresh lavash, but didn't find one. I'm rather handicapped without a sense of smell, as otherwise I'm sure I could follow my nose at the right time of day.  I was also looking for the signs of someone repairing the telephone cable, since it seems nobody in the street has internet at the moment due to a cable fault.  I don't quite understand this since the telephone works fine. Anyway, as it is a state-run telephone company owning the local loop there is not much hope of anyone fixing it quickly. This is one reason why I have not blogging much.

Incidentally does anyone understand how three separate internet cables in the Mediterranean could be damaged at the same time and how India could be so dependent on cables in that direction and not on some ring to the US?

My reading has been rather British (book reviews following).  And I've been watching/listening to Mezzo.  There are a lot of recordings from the past.  For a whole evening we had what must have been Karajan rehearsing (in black and white) an orchestra consisting entirely of men, looking like they were at a funeral, no enjoyment at all on their faces, in informal dress of scruffy baggy suits.  No wonder orchestras normally adopted formal dress for performances in those days. All the players were sitting extremely still, with the minimum of movements necessary to play their instruments. 

This set me wondering when it became acceptable for players to move about playing their instruments.  Watching Mezzo today, it's clearly acceptable to jump around, sway from side to side, and generally "go with the flow" of the music.  Perhaps it also has something to do with the number of women in music.

Two Concerts (update)

My concert reviews are going to be a bit of a joke, I'm afraid, to anyone seriously musical.  I have that level of knowledge that says, I don't know much about music but I know what I like.  I have a very good memory for the tunes but am useless at the names of pieces of music.  I like most classical music but not much really modern stuff, though I go back a long way liking early music.  The only exception on the modern front the minimalist, repetitive stuff, which I find strangely soothing, though I haven't really listened to much of it.

Tonight I went to a concert in the Philharmonia Hall, a special occasion as it was two Lithuanians playing: David Geringas (cello) and his wife Tatiana (strange to see the surname as Geringas not Geringiene, but it seems she is Russian anyway), on piano.  I found Geringas looked a little like Donald Rumsfeld, though much less sinister.  It was rather distracting, and no doubt very unfair to him, as when he smiled he looked like a normal person.

The hall was smaller that the Philharmonia in Vilnius, but similar design, with the balcony just at the back, not all the way round.  The programme started with a modern piece from each of the Baltic countries. First, Arvo Part's Spiegel in Spiegel (rather slow and gloomy). Then Vytautas  Barkauskas's Suite de Concert, op 38, which had lots of sawing, banging and scraping up and down the scale.  By then I was wishing for the interval.  Then came Peteris Vasks' Gramata Cellam (The Book of Cello).  The first movement "fortissimo" seemed like a corrupted mp3 file of Shostokovich's Cello Concerto without the orchestra, bits seemed familiar and then weren't, and it was hard to concentrate.  But then the second movement "pianissimo" woke me up.  Suddenly it seemed there was a contralto voice coming from somewhere. It sounded like one of those modern pieces where they have a tape recorder playing something along  with the live performance.  I was very puzzled by this.  The programme notes were only in Slovene so no clues there.  However, then there was a soprano voice, which clearly was coming from the cello, so I thought I had imagined the contralto voice as a recording.  But right at the end it came back (again sounding like a recording).  So maybe the movement should be called "cello and two voices".  I enjoyed that part, anyway.

The second half was Brahms' Sonata for cello and piano no 1, op 38.  That was an old friend which I hadn't heard for a long time. I must have had a recording of it at sometime, as I remember listening to it a lot, but it's long lost now, as it's not on my iPod.  All this changing of media from vinyl to cassettes to cds and now mp3s, means you never replace exactly what you had before, and stuff you like is always disappearing. The music seemed to have gone down well, as there were three encores (no more modern stuff) all enjoyable. 

The other concert (a couple of weeks ago) was in the big Cankarjev dom (Gallusova dvorana), very modern and boring.  The tickets were quite expensive, I paid 20 Euros to sit up in the gods with the students.   No translation of the programme and no lady announcer to tell you what you were going to hear or who was substituting.  Slovenians also don't do the slow coordinated clapping for encores, that audiences in the former Soviet Union do.

The programme started with a piece by a Slovene composer Blaz Arnic, titled Memento Mori.  It was slow and gloomy (as you might expect from the title) and I was glad when it finished, so I could cough.  The conductor of the Slovene Philharmonic Orchestra was George Pehlivanian, presumably an Armenian.  He wasn't so much fun to watch as Gintaras Rinkevicius. I should explain that most of my concert going in the last 10 years had been in Lithuania, and as I had just been there, that's where my comparisons are coming from.  And the guy on the kettle drums also wasn't much of a show performer like we are used to with Pasha, (I forget his real name*, but no doubt someone who reads this will give him a proper credit) who plays percussion like a jazz drummer, with feeling and facial expressions and no doubt humming as well, if you were close enough.  He's great. 

Then there was Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4.  The soloist was Dubravka Tomsic Srebotnjak.  Clearly I should have heard of her, but I hadn't. She appeared in a red and gold tent, with big hair, you know the style.  She played well, but nothing stunning.  The audience loved her (she is their local star made good internationally) and cheered and clapped until she finally did an encore.  It was Chopin  (I think) but it was amazing. Suddenly I could see the brilliance, and understood why the audience was so keen. 

The second half was Richard Strauss's Symphonic Poem Ein Heldenleben Op.40 which called for a huge orchestra.  To fit it all in, the 8 double basses and cellos were on the "wrong side", as the harps and other extra strings had taken their place.  3 of the brass got up early and went out for a smoke before coming back again for the finale.  At least that's what it looked like.  Perhaps that's all normal for this work.  Anyway, the audience were not nearly so impressed with this half, and the flowers were not so lavish as for Dubravka.

So that's the end of my first foray into concert reviews.  I don't know how many more there will be.

*Update: his name is Pavelas Giunteris.

Technorati tags: concert, review, ljubljana