15 M.P.H./NO PASSING

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

As of today, most Tucson schools are back in session, so be careful when out driving. The cops will be looking for you.

With the Tucson Unified School District and a number of other schools resuming classes today, the school zone speed limits will be in effect during morning and afternoon hours. That means you can't drive more than 15 miles an hour and you can't pass other cars while in designated school zones. Tucson Police usually man these areas closely when school first returns, so be careful when out driving. You don't want to get a ticket and you certainly don't want to hurt any children.

Between school zones, red light cameras and roving mobile van speed cameras, if you speed, eventually you'll get caught.

ORPHANED ORCHESTRA

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

In the 1990s, I saw a lot of little local arts groups collapse when they lost their founders/leaders. There just wasn’t enough of an administrative infrastructure or shared artistic vision to sustain the organizations once their charismatic leaders burned out or moved on. Now, the Tucson Chamber Orchestra is facing life after the departure of its founder, but I think that this group just might survive. From the latest Tucson Weekly:

Last April, just days before a high-profile concert at the Fox Tucson Theatre, Enrique Lasansky unexpectedly announced that the upcoming performance would be his last with the Tucson Chamber Orchestra, which he had founded 17 years before. His e-mail surprised his musicians and board. "Enrique's leaving left a real void for me as a new board member," says Madeline Bosma. "Now I don't have the same kind of enthusiasm about promoting the orchestra that I had formerly, but I really love classical music, so because of that, I will do what I can to help it." Lasansky didn't exactly leave the orchestra in an artistic void. A guest conductor had already been engaged for the season finale in June, and concertmaster Ellen Chamberlain is serving as interim music director for the coming season, during which four local conductors will audition to replace Lasansky. "Artistically, we're in a very good place," Chamberlain says. "The players have really stepped up, taking control of a lot of things so everything runs smoothly. A lot of my colleagues from the Tucson Symphony and chamber opportunities I've had have renewed interest in the orchestra, so we're getting more fully professional talent into the group. We're getting stronger players, and because of that, we'll be able to do a more challenging repertoire." Board president Patrick Gibbons says, "We're looking forward to having more of a player-driven organization. That can either kill an orchestra or make it better, but we're pretty hopeful."

You can find my full article here.

Also this week, I review Chris’ Café in La Placita, and the key sentences are these: “There's nothing experimental or surprising at Chris', except for the surprise that the people behind the counter remain pleasant no matter how busy they get. Cautious eaters will feel perfectly safe here with the traditional fare.” Learn more here.

PROKOFIEV AND GANDOLFI

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

Here are two more reviews I wrote earlier this year for Fanfare ... one devoted to a 20th-century Russian, the other to a 21st-century American.

PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 5; Lieutenant Kijé Suite * Paavo Järvi, cond; Cincinnati SO * TELARC SACD 60683 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 64:25)

Paavo Järvi’s recording of Prokofiev’s Fifth reminds me of Leonard Slatkin’s recording of Elgar’s Enigma Variations: an essentially dark, somber view of music in which we’re accustomed to hearing more variety. Like Slatkin’s Elgar, Järvi’s Fifth is at least consistent and coherent and, indeed, valid, so it can’t be dismissed simply because we’ve come to expect more bite or more humor.

In the first movement, Järvi interprets the Andante marking as a leisurely walk, in the manner of Ormandy’s classic recording, instead of the brisk stroll we’ve been getting more recently, and rather than deflate the score, this tempo builds the music’s cumulative power. On the debit side, the second subject seems a bit impersonal. Järvi and the Telarc engineers maintain a very clear delineation of the orchestral sections, with the low brass being especially clear without being terribly heavy. At the same time, though, higher-pitched instruments, including trumpet and violins, seem reluctant to come forward in the mix, in ensemble passages as well as in woodwind and brass solos. This balance deepens the grayness of Järvi’s interpretation. All this holds true for the third movement as well. Järvi brings a brighter sound to the second and fourth movements, both benefiting from excellent clarity of articulation; the Scherzo truly scampers, despite the undercurrent of menace. A low-grade nervousness suffuses the final movement; the final section borders on the frantic and desperate, without turning shrill.

There’s less to report on the Kijé Suite; it gets a crisp, thumping performance, full of wit and flair, and not at all controversial. The performance of the Fifth, on the other hand, is strictly for people who can tolerate an anti-heroic approach to a work that is usually thought to be, at least in the end, celebratory. James Reel

GANDOLFI The Garden of Cosmic Speculation * Robert Spano, cond; Atlanta SO * TELARC SACD-60696 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 67:36)

The universe is expanding, and so is Michael Gandolfi’s The Garden of Cosmic Speculation. The work began in 2004 as a four-movement orchestral suite inspired by features of a unique “physics garden” in southern Scotland. Robert Spano’s performances of that with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra were so successful that the organization asked Gandolfi to make it bigger, and seven more movements had emerged by 2007. This now amounts to more than an hour of music, but Gandolfi suggests that performers may extract whatever sequences that make sense to them for public performance. Spano and his orchestra here present the complete score.

The original Garden of Cosmic Speculation was created in 1988 by architect Charles Jencks, as a sort of visual embodiment of the concepts of wave theory, sub-atomic particles, string theory and such. Involving sculpture and landscape architecture, it’s a cross between the English formal gardens of the past and the theoretical physics of today. The park is apparently opened to visitors only one day a year, but Jencks published a book about the property, which is what initially caught Gandolfi’s attention. (Preparing the expanded version of his suite, he visited the garden in person.)

Gandolfi is a faculty member of the New England Conservatory and the Tanglewood Music Center, but he’s not one of the high Modernists that his Boston cultural neighbor, James Levine, is so fond of. Gandolfi’s music is readily accessible (at least to anyone who enjoys the sort of composers Spano promotes, such as Jennifer Higdon and Osvaldo Golijov), and quite eclectic … sometimes, perhaps, too eclectic to allow the composer to establish his own profile.

That eclecticism is fully intentional in the movement “The Universal Cascade,” which in the course of six and a half minutes quotes 28 pieces, mostly pre-Baroque, but including Bach, Stravinsky and Miles Davis. This is followed by “The Garden of Senses Suite,” which quotes Bach themes and forms (a different Baroque dance style or chorale corresponds to each of the senses, including the sixth, intuition). There’s minimalist pulsation and vibration, like mid-period John Adams, in the work’s first movement, “The Zeroroom,” and he adopts a rather French aesthetic, but with American openness and sweep (and sometimes syncopation), in the hurtling scherzo “Symmetry Break Terrace/Black Hole Terrace.” The score as a whole can be dynamic and exciting, witty, at times wonderfully still, and always offers plenty of internal variety, with care for color and clarity, but on the basis of this one 67-minute work, I’m having trouble identifying Gandolfi’s own voice. Even so, I’d like to continue the effort by hearing more of his music.

Telarc’s surround sound is exactly what this score needs: clear, detailed and spatially precise. The Scottish park atmosphere is evoked at the beginning and end by birdsong emerging from all the speakers, but otherwise the balance maintains a normal concert hall perspective. James Reel

AZPM ELECTION FORUMS

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

The debates/forums for the September 2nd primary election in Arizona are underway on KUAT6. They are taking place on various days during "Arizona Illustrated."

Some already have aired and you can watch them in the On Demand section of this website. Our political page will roll out very soon and you'll be able to link to everything from there.

You can check out the schedule of political segments by clicking here on a regular basis.

SPOKE AND BOW

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

Oregon Symphony violist Charles Noble has produced a blog entry that intertwines two interests of mine, music and cycling, and how to improve your abilities in both pursuits. Read it here.

MOZART ON A DIET

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

MOZART Piano Concertos: No. 11; No. 12 (chamber versions). String Quartet No. 4 * Janina Fialkowska (pn); Ch Players of Canada * ATMA SACD2 2531 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 62:58)

The booklet photo is what looks to be a century-old photo of a girl, possibly hooded, grasping a large umbrella for balance and high-stepping across a tightrope. Perilous balance really has nothing to do with this release of Mozart’s own reduction for piano and string quartet of his K. 413 and 414 piano concerti. By the nature of the composition, the piano reigns supreme except in the tutti passages; these are, after all, concertos, not piano quintets (actually sextets; here, a double bass is added for welcome support at the bottom end). Yet these players treat the scores as chamber music as much as possible; the piano is placed behind the strings, recital style, rather than up front, concerto style (the placement is quite distinct, thanks to Atma’s superb DSD sonics). Soloist Janina Fialkowska is by no means reticent, but she feels no obligation to play forward; she’s happy to engage in interplay with the strings when Mozart allows it, and otherwise plays like a sonata soloist, without muscling through the score.

Compared to the great Mozart keyboard concertos that would soon follow these first efforts of his Viennese maturity, the items at hand can sound rather insubstantial in their standard orchestral garb; in this reduction, Mozart’s melodic felicities emerge to greater effect. (And there’s no reason to lament the loss of the original woodwind lines, which frankly aren’t as delectable as what Mozart would be producing just a few concertos hence.)

Mozart wrote the two concertos on this disc at the same time as K. 415, in 1783, and regarded them as an informal unit, designed to make a splash with the Viennese public, publicizing his own skills as a pianist and as a composer while also generating scores that could be published for the home market. It’s a shame, then, that these performers (or the label) fill out the disc with an early Mozart string quartet rather than the K. 415 concerto. The quartet is well-played, at least. The strings have warmth, and while there’s nothing impulsive or really intense in the playing of the quartet or the concertos, neither are these bland sight-reading sessions. The best word for these performances: gracious.

—James Reel