Monotonous Forest

Today's hearing loss advisory

"Sound Level: Inside, absolutely bonkers."

[From restaurant critic Frank Bruni's review of Table 8 in The New York Times]

A Steinberg snapshot

A singer from Minneapolis writes about his favorite encounter with Michael Steinberg:

"Every summer the Minnesota Orchestra has a festival they call Sommerfest. It’s been around for thirty years or so, first headed by Leonard Slatkin back in the day. It gave him the chance to chat with the audience from the podium; one time, he chatted with them out on Peavey Plaza, where a large screen had been set up, and everyone sat there and watched What’s Opera, Doc? and The Rabbit of Seville. But I digress…

"I’m not sure how, but somehow, Michael Steinberg ended up being in charge for at least one summer. It had been (and still is) tradition to close the festival with a concert performance of an opera. In 1990, Butterfly was the choice; I was part of the cast as Uncle Bonze. Now the Bonze is a thankless role (a friend once described it by saying, "If you can still phonate when you walk off the stage, you haven’t done it with enough terror…"), but it can make an impact, and I had a good night. At the dinner after the concert, I was sitting across the table from Christopher O’Riley, who was very gracious and told me he thought I had done an amazing job. So I must have done well, but the Bonze is still a short role, and by the last act, most people have forgotten him.

"In the middle of dinner, Michael stood up to say a few words. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I do remember this: during his brief remarks, he told the group that he needed to thank the singers for their work, and he then did exactly that, by mentioning every one of us by first name. Mind you, he had no notes, he just went down the list, from Cio-Cio San, Pinkerton, the whole gang, down to the Bonze and the Imperial Commissioner.  Many an impresario wouldn’t be able to do that without notes AND a prompter. And he obviously meant what he said! It was something very simple, but so very rarely done, that it was actually quite touching. I’ve never forgotten that.

"A few years ago, we did a concert with Helmuth Rilling, and Jorja Fleezanis (Steinberg’s wife, who has played under Rilling for years) led the pick-up orchestra. During one of the rehearsal breaks, I went over and said hi, asked about Michael, and told her my story, just so she could tell him I still remembered his generosity over fifteen years later.

"So there you have it. Nothing flashy nor earth-shattering, but something I wanted to pass along. He was one of the good guys."

And Merce

Shortly after I moved to New York, I saw Merce Cunningham in John Cage's Inlets (1977), with gurgling sounds created by the performers pouring water back and forth from conch shells.  It was like no other dance I had ever seen, and at that time Cunningham was almost 70 years old.  Choreographers continue until advanced ages, but how many dancers keep going? 

Cunningham died yesterday at age 90, and Tobi Tobias has an obituary here.  Update: Charles T. Downey of ionarts offers astute comments, and Alistair Macaulay's beautiful, comprehensive assessment for The New York Times is here.

[Photo: members of Merce Cunningham Dance Company rehearsing in 1971, by John Loengard for LIFE Magazine]

Another giant, gone

A friend called yesterday with news of the death of Michael Steinberg, confirmed by the San Francisco Chronicle.  Anyone who has attended classical concerts has probably encountered his elegant, lucid program notes, which were unfailingly readable and always enlightening, adding layers of understanding even to familiar pieces.  I often put myself in the position of someone encountering a work for the very first time, and how lucky they were to be in Steinberg's hands.

Crazy for pianists

This year's International Keyboard Institute & Festival is well underway, and once again, Jerome Rose and Julie Kedersha have lined up a huge array of pianists in concerts and master classes, all in the intimate spaces at Mannes College The New School for Music.  On Sunday David Dubal will talk with Byron Janis, and next Friday, Ching-Yun Hu plays Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit. The final night will be Olga Kern in a program of Czerny, Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Liszt.  The complete schedule is here.

[Photo: Pianist in a club by Peter Stackpole, April 1946, from the LIFE Photo Archive]

Two weeks in Switzerland

Once again the Verbier Festival will be broadcasting concerts in high-quality audio and video, starting Friday, July 17, on Medici.tv.  Although it was just announced that Hélène Grimaud will not appear due to illness, there are still plenty of treats in store, including Manfred Honeck conducting an all-star cast in a concert version of Mozart's Don Giovanni (July 20), a recital by Susan Graham and Malcolm Martineau (July 24), pianist Yuja Wang in an all-Mendelssohn concert with the Festival Orchestra led by Kurt Masur (July 31), and Ms. Wang in a solo recital including Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrouchka (August 1).

Summer monotony

I've been away for a bit, and should have alerted readers as such, so my apologies for the few weeks' outage.  During the hiatus I've been catching up on some things in my listening pile, which I hope to report on later.  Meanwhile, a friend forwarded me this photo of musicians in Nepal outside the home of former King Gyanendra, giving him a recital on July 7, his birthday.

 

[Photo from Reuters Pictures]