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MUSIC APPRECIATION 101

Janis Joplin

I purchased PEARL in 1971. When I heard drummer Clark Pierson’s opening kicks and Ms. Joplin sing, “You say that its over baby, you say that its over now” I gulped and was willingly dragged into the magic that was her voice. Today whenever I hear the opening cut to PEARL I begin the smile in anticipation of a listening experience of the first water. Of course the original recording was pressed on LP and once in a while I still listen to this vinyl version, but dammit, CDs are more convenient. I own the so-called Legacy Edition. CD or vinyl, be sure to turn your volume to 11.

11 was one notch above her contemporary rock rivals. That’s the way Joplin seems to have lived her life and that is the way she sang, even in the most tender moments of Cry Baby. I can’t think of another song with such a cry or in A Woman Left Lonely, or in the hot Half Moon. She did have a great band, thank heavens for Full Tilt Boogie: Clark Pierson, drums; Ken Pearson, organ; John Till, guitar and Richard Bell, piano. I challenge anyone to name a better rendition of Me and Bobby McGee. It doesn’t exist, It can’t exist. And listen to Get it While You Can. She did. Admittedly, it cost her dearly, but I’ll be forever thankful for her commitment to every note. Her ability to express what she felt. Sometimes I’ve tried, but I drew a line Janis Joplin did not. At least her testament to emotional honesty remains for others, singers or not.

Jacques Loussier

Today I would not think of myself as a big jazz fan. I once was. For the 1st fourteen years of my life I listened to the original Dixieland Jazz Band, Sydney Bechet, Lizzy Miles, Bessie Smith, and Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5 and 7. Armstrong’s recording of W.C. Handy’s music and the great recording Anbassador Satch were favourites. What a band. Trummy Young on trombone, Arvell Shaw on bass, Barney Bigard on clarinet, Billy Kyle on piano and Barrett (“the fastest drummer in the world”) Deems on drums .

I then became interested in music with less formal structure. After college I played 12 years in symphony orchestras and reveled in the sound. In the 60s I listened to the Beatles (how many did not?) and Ravi Shankar. But jazz didn’t come back into my life again with any kind of seriousness until I hooked up with clarinetist Phil Nimmons, purchased a new release of his amazing early big-band compositions and did some improvising with him while I was in Nexus.

And then on my most recent trip to Germany, a friend of mine played a Jacques Loussier (b.1934) Play Bach Trio recording, bassist Pierre Michelot, percussionist Christian Ganos. Formed in 1959, they were together for 15 years and sold more than 6,000,000 recordings of Jazz based on the music of Bach before disbanding in 1974. I felt old. I graduated from high school in 1957 and it took me 55 years to discover them.

I’ve never liked arrangements of Bach’s music. Especially arrangements for marimba, glass harmonica, synthesizers, pop vocal groups, cats and dogs and, well, you get the idea. But Mr. Loussier is an artist of great sensitivity and taste, as well, he is in possession of a great technique, fluid and precise. Loussier, himself a composer, obviously understands Bach’s music. He does not use it as a vehicle for self-indulgence. His escapades never fail to convince me of his or Bach’s artistry.

During the last few weeks I have listened to this recording many times and it continues to delight. Bach was known as an improviser in the classical style. I think a concert of Bach and Loussier would have been a sell-out.

Halle, Handel, Bach and the Marktkirche, Germany

23 Oct

The Halle Market and Marktkirche, (1529-54).

My wife and I visited Halle to renew our acquaintence with Dr. Rasmus Sennewald and his wife Julia and their two children, Emma and Caspar Hans Leopold. While a student, Rasmus had been a driver for Nexus during its engagement with the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in 2005. He introduced us to his parents, Rainer and Marlis and thus began for my wife and me, a regular voyage of travels.

Since Roman times Halle was a major producer of salt, a city of importance during the Thirty Years War (1618-48) and about 300 years later disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. After reunification, financial aid from former West Germany has begun to refurbish Halle’s infrastructure, helping it to catch up with the 20th century. Halle is also a city closely associated with historically important people, among them Martin Luther.

Luther was born and died in Eisleben, Saxony, then part of the Holy Roman Empire in 1546. His death mask was made the day after he died.1.) Martin Luther preached his last sermon in Marktkirche from the wooden pulpit shown below. The Marktkirche obtained the mask and is on display in a room at the back of the church.

Death Mask of Martin Luther. (1483-1546)

The pulpit from which Martin Luther last preached, 1546.

In 1713 Bach tested renovations of the Marktkirche organ and was offered the post of organist. He declined, but his son Wilhelm Friedemann, known as the Hallesian Bach, was organist from 1746 until 1764.

The Marktkirche organ loft today.

Original organ loft.

Handel spent his first 18 years in Halle. He was baptized 24 Feb,1685 and received his first organ lessons in the Marktkirche. His birthplace, just a short walk from the church, is now a museum. Except for one front room, its interior has been painted in hospital white. Nevertheless it contains portraits, reproductions of manuscripts and most interesting to me, music instruments played by Handel or in use during his lifetime. Please see the photo gallery attached to the end of this article.

Handel-Haus

Original interior room, Handel-Haus

The parents of Rasmus live in Ratjendorf about an hour’s drive northeast of Hamburg. Rainer is the art director for the German magazine DerSpiegel and besides being a teacher, once a year Marlis organizes an international PaperTheatre festival near Ratjendorf. 2.) They love to travel and compared to the US and Canada, German culture allows plenty of time for them to indulge. During our first meeting, we asked them to visit us and much to our surprise and delight, they arrived in Toronto two months later. They’ve now visited us twice here, the second time with their youngest son Tobias.

We’ve met in New York City and visited Tuscany. This year Rainer and Marlis suggested a tour of Germany that would introduce us to some of the places significant in their lives. After a week in Paris, my wife and I boarded an overnight train to Hamburg where the Sennewald’s met and drove us to their home in Ratjendorf. We spent two days enjoying each other’s company and discussing our upcoming trip.

This is part one of a three part posting. The second will concern Paris, Marie Antoinette and the Treaty of Ghent and the third will describe the John Cage As Slow As Possible project in Halberstadt.

1. http://itthing.com/life-and-death-masks-of-famous-people for Beethoven’s life mask.

2. www.papiertheater-preetz.de

All photos of snare drumd by Rainer Sennewald.

Glass Harmonica, Bohemia, ca. 1820.

Lacqured wood shelled Snare drum, 18th c.

Hand Screw Timpani

Rope tensioned field snare drrum.

Glass Harmonica, England, 19th c.

Key tensioned, metal shelled Snare drum

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Posted by robinengelman on October 23, 2012 in Articles

Linda Smith in Toronto’s Music Garden.

30 Aug

Music Garden Design.

Linda Smith writes music for dreams, dreams awash with silence. Her music gently prods the ear and takes it on a journey of discovery, each cluster of sounds a garden of delight. Her latest work titled “Rose With Thorns” for harpsichord and violin was serendipitously premiered in Toronto’s Music Garden on August 19.

This garden was the idea of cellist Yo-Yo Ma and landscape artist Julie Moir Messervy. The two came up with the idea of a “reflection in landscape of Bach’s Suite No.1 in C major for unaccompanied cello”. When the plan was completed, they took it to Boston Massachusetts in the hopes of finding a place to build it. But the city politicians of Boston vetoed the idea so Yo-Yo and Julie migrated north to a new city and a different country,Toronto, Canada.

Here in Toronto, they struck gold. They hooked up with Jim Fleck a former college bass drummer, businessman and political advisor who occupies most of his retirement hours funding important cultural organizations. Yo-Yo had found the right man. Mr. Fleck can make a phone call and people will part with significant sums of money simply by hearing “Hi, this is Jim.” Indeed, he got all the money together in a short afternoon of phone calls from his home. There was only one rejection. The owner of high end condominiums overlooking the slice of land proposed for the garden, refused to contribute even though the garden would add considerably to his property values.

It’s been a few years now since the garden was built and it has fleshed out beautifully. Native grasses, lovely shrubs and flowers and trees well on their way to maturity, make this spot if not completely tranquil, at least comforting to one’s eyes and spirit.

A decision was made to hold free week end concerts in the garden and Tamara Bernstein was chosen to organize each season’s roster. Tamara is an intelligent musician and a delightfully loquacious communicator. She has done a remarkably good job from the moment she began. Since the first Garden concert, however, problems have developed beyond those normally associated with outdoor performances.

The Music Garden exists only a sidewalks’ width from Lake Ontario. Private boats dock all along its length and a bit further out, occasional party boats pass by blaring loud music in their wakes. Porter Airlines and Air Canada launch or receive 150 flights a day from the island airport just a hefty stones throw from the garden and as evening approaches, canons are fired from the waterfront to scare Canadian geese from the airline flight paths.

On the other side are sidewalks, roads for automobiles and tracks for streetcars. From that side you get the occasional sound of horns, radios, bicycle bells, macho motorcycle motors and the clackity-clack of Toronto transit.

So what does all this extraneous noise portend for a harpsichord violin duo? Surprisingly little. The Music Garden has found a good sound-man who enhances instruments and keeps the music clearly audible against the ambient sounds. The violin harpsichord duo is from Montreal and though young, they have some very impressive things going for them. Les Amusement de la Chambres play a very interesting repertoire, mostly from the Baroque era, and play at an extremely high level of artistry. A commissioning program which regularly supplies them with contemporary works was responsible for Ms Smith’s work.

Ms Smith is slim and self effacing. For many years a major interest for her has been Tango dancing and I suspect she is very good at it. She has also become one of Canada’s senior composers. She told the audience that the title of her work came from the Rose, the violin and the plucking of the harpsichord, the Thorn. It is a substantial work, harmonically captivating with many moments of repose which allow one time to reflect and absorb.

The Music Garden’s terraced seating was filled with people and the weather was perfect. Harpsichordist Katelyn Clark and violinist Emily Redhead successfully contended with freshets of wind and noise. As for Ms Smith’s “Rose With Thorns”, they allowed its sounds to hang unhurried in the air and their performance was a treat for these ears. This duo opens many doors for music exploration and if Les Amusement de la Chambres can stay together, they will have a splendid career. They are already a welcomed addition to the chamber music of Canada.