NEW STUFF ON THE SITE

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

We've just added some exclusive content on our website.

First of all, there's the entire inaugural speech from Arizona's new governor, Republican Jan Brewer. It's under "Political Conversations" on the KUAZ page, or simply click here.

We've also added some stories from the recent StoryCorps visit to Tucson. They're under "Community," or click here and scroll down until you see the audio players. We'll be adding new ones every week or so.

CATCHING UP AGAIN

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

I’ve been fighting an insidious cold for about a week, and haven’t spent much time in the studio, which means I’ve neglected the blog. Let me try to catch up a little with links to my material in last week’s Tucson Weekly, just before it’s time to replace it all with new stuff. Here’s how the first review starts:

Donald Margulies won a Pulitzer for his play _Dinner With Friends_, but that doesn't mean it's either an epic or a spectacle in the tradition of such winning plays as _August: Osage County, Rent, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches_ or _The Kentucky Cycle_. It's a smaller, tighter work more in the manner of _Doubt, Proof_ and _Wit_. Indeed, at first glance, the subject of _Dinner With Friends_ seems mundane: how four people are affected by divorce. What makes Margulies' comedy/drama Pulitzer-worthy is its slightly unusual angle: This is not so much an account of how relationships fall apart as a consideration of how they might hold together. Beowulf Alley Theatre Company has just opened a strong production of _Dinner With Friends_, deftly directed by Susan Arnold.

And if that boring lede doesn’t dissuade you from pursuing the evaluation, you can do so here. Then, on to a second review:

Gaslight Theatre thrives on musical spoofs of various brands of genre fiction, but right now, it's returning to its late-1970s roots in Western melodrama. The latest bit of horseplay is called The Ballad of Two-Gun McGraw, and it's everything this sort of show should be, if you can figure out what that is.

Find out what my idea of that is here.

FAKING IT?

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

I'm watching the inauguration online, and Yo Yo Ma et al. are performing, but all the crowd noise has magically disappeared and the instruments have some reverb. Is what we're hearing an earlier recording?

A GUEST BLOG

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

I'm devoting today's space for a rebuttal to my comments earlier this week on the retail sector and the economy.

Bill Davis of the Bruce Baughman Gallery responds to my previous blog.

While I agree that the economic state is in the gutter, as a retailer, it does not help that the media is constantly portraying the negatives of the economy. The big engine that fuels the economy is retail spending, and while it is in decline, many people are out there buying not only staples, but other luxury goods as well. What we all need is a positive angle to the economy, showing that their are people willing and able to spend for personal goods. As a manager of the Bruce Baughman Gallery, we actually see an upturn in business when times get tough. We first noticed it right after 9/11, when the markets tanked and people were dumb founded about the 401Ks and their portfolios. They wanted to make themselves feel good about themselves and life in general, and were purchasing items for their home, where they could enjoy things. Again, when the economy went south in 2008, we saw the same situation we had after 9/11. Our clients wanted again to make themselves feel good about things, and purchasing major items was one way for them to do that. So, if all the media focuses on the positive side of things, and show that people are buying and fueling the economy, it will help generate more sales, which in turn, leads to an economic upturn. Plus, with the new administration one day away, their is a great positive mood change in the air that will just naturally help bolster the economy. Just think about all the money generated by the Inaugural, and there are people of all means in Washington D.C. who spent a lot of money to get there, sleep there, eat there, and purchase there. Now there's a news story. Sincerely, Bill Davis Gallery Director Bruce Baughman Gallery

Thanks Bill!

BAD NEWS CONTINUES

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

January and February typically are the big tourism months in Tucson, but what will this year hold? With soccer, gem shows and the rodeo events gearing up for action, organizers are worried the economic impact of those events could fall well below what normally is expected.

While that's not really surprising, considering all of the economic turmoil as of late, the Tucson Citizen breaks down all of the worries.

There has to be a point where these types of stories end (doesn't there?), but there also has to be a point where it leads us to say "duh!"

With people struggling to hold on to their homes and jobs, it really shouldn't come as a big surprise that some of the cutbacks in spending would come from not buying tickets to expensive events or renting hotel rooms.

Yes, it is indeed sad, but these stories are becoming so plentiful they lose a lot of impact. That, in itself, is a problem. Where does it all end?

SURROUNDED BY BEETHOVEN

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

Tonight, the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music will present a concert by the Borromeo Quartet, including the world premiere of a work we at AFCM commissioned from Robert Maggio. The program also includes one of my favorite string quartets, the first in Beethoven’s “Rasumovsky” series. Not long ago in Fanfare, I reviewed a four-channel reissue of a classic recording of that quartet. Here’s that review, and as a bonus my review of the latest installment in Osmo Vänskä’s SACD Beethoven symphony cycle.

BEETHOVEN String Quartets: in F, Op. 59 No. 1, “First Rasumovsky”; in B-flat, Op. 18 No. 6 * Quartetto Italiano * PENTATONE PTC 5186 175 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 68:00)

It should seem odd to say that PentaTone is rescuing Quartetto Italiano’s Beethoven from oblivion; the ensemble’s highly regarded Beethoven cycle has been a catalog mainstay since its LP release in the 1970s, and its various reissues and repackagings in the CD era. But “rescue” is correct in one sense: Philips has never issued the material in the quadraphonic format in which it was recorded, and now PentaTone begins to rectify that with a single, tantalizing four-channel SACD derived from the original tapes of two of Beethoven’s most attractive and immediately accessible quartets.

The first priority, though, should be the performances, and these are rightly classics. The readings are poised and flowing, sensitive to a variety of articulation, attacks and details of dynamics, but not as hyper-dramatic as many more recent efforts. Without underplaying the scores, Quartetto Italiano provides interpretations that should be very attractive to listeners who find even the finest contemporary efforts (Emerson, Prazak) to be excessively intense and nervous.

The recorded sound as presented here is better than ever: the musicians are close to the microphones but not claustrophobic, and their instruments come through with wonderful transparency and precise placement. We should be urging PentaTone to remaster the entire Quartetto Italiano Beethoven series, but given the current market, perhaps this is the most we can hope for. It may be only a single disc, but it’s very fine indeed. James Reel

BEETHOVEN Symphonies: No. 2; No. 7 * Osmo Vänskä, cond; Minnesota O * BIS SACD 1816 (hybrid multichannel SACD: 75:49)

Here concludes one of the finest available Beethoven symphony cycles. As Osmo Vänskä’s Minnesota series has progressed, the phrasing has gradually lost some of the intricate detail of the early volumes, but all the other virtues remain steady: bracing but not bludgeoning tempi, crisp attacks and releases, and tremendous clarity of texture from the all-important basses to the top. The orchestra performs with a precision and intensity evoking its Dorati days, but now with more refined execution in more flattering acoustics—plush but not overbearing reverberation, and a soundstage that’s wide, deep, and exactly charted. In both the symphonies at hand, this is big-band Beethoven in which the woodwinds make themselves heard assertively and elegantly across the strings, while the brass and timpani create an essential element of the texture without dominating it. The pristine engineering has much to do with this success, but it all begins with the musicians.

Perhaps most essential for these two symphonies, especially the Seventh, is rhythmic clarity, which Vänskä and his Minnesotans provide to the utmost. This is especially rewarding in the Seventh’s first and third movements, where rhythms as well as melodies are articulated exactly, but also with a vivacious litheness. Detailed articulation pays dividends in the slower music as well, particularly the Second Symphony’s first-movement introduction and the Seventh’s Allegretto.

In their heft and muscularity, Vänskä’s Beethoven performances call to mind Karajan’s early-1960s cycle, which is available as a two-channel SACD reissue. But whereas Karajan tends to conduct in big, boldface paragraphs, Vänskä remembers to highlight individual phrases along the way. Paavo Järvi has a very fine chamber-orchestra Beethoven cycle nearing completion, but among large-orchestra versions, Vänskä’s is the preferred SACD traversal, and one of the most desirable in any format. James Reel