Klarinet Archive - Posting 000154.txt from 2006/05

From: o4rmondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: [kl] Moshe Berlin & Sulam - Mark O'Connor - Michael Lowenstern
Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 02:52:39 -0400

Today was certainly a musical day for me.

Moshe Berlin's "Sulam" was in my mailbox this morning. I had ordered
it because Moshe --- is it proper to address you as Moshe, Moshe? If
not, please=A0accept my apology --- mentioned that he and his
compatriots played it without written music. Moshe didn't mention that
apparently "Sulam" is the first CD that he ever recorded.

"Sulam" is equally divided between clarinet, flute, and fiddle with
piano & percussion parts. So it's not just clarinet. The flute and
fiddle parts are top notch also. The songs have a much wider variety
of styles and colors and tempos and moods than I expected to hear on a
"Klezmer" album.

I do recommend "Sulam" for it's overall musical value, not just for its
clarinet interest.

In the early afternoon, I attended a Mark O'Connor "soire" (fiddle,
"Appalachia Waltz", etc.). It was excellent music and fun, but what
really caught my attention was that one lady who sponsored the
performance had commissioned a piece by Mark. Today was truly the
first performance of this composition, it having been finished only this
week.

Mark described the piece as having "a b a b" structure which contrasted
the "blissful ignorance" of young musicians with the "sadder and not
necessarily wiser" attitude of more experienced and tired and skeptical
musicians. Mark's description included a true anecdote of a "sadder
but not wiser" musician who died a few weeks after the anecdote, but
Mark's explanation led the audience to expect that the composition would
end on a happy, positive note.

It didn't.

I haven't heard all of Mark O'Connor's music, but I've heard a fair bit
of it. I've never heard him play (or write) a piece that tore me up as
much as this one did. It wasn't melodramatically plaintive, such as
(say) the prototypical gypsy violinist playing at midnight under the
moon,; but it was painfully more sorrowful anyway.

I expect that the lady who commissioned it.... while I'm sure that she
feels that she received her money's worth --- the music was eloquent
without being cheap melodrama --- nevertheless I doubt that she was
expecting what she received.

And then this evening I heard Michael Lowenstern (bass clarinet +
electronics).

I was nervous because bass clarinet + electronics sometimes amounts to
'weird', and I don't like 'weird', but Lowenstern was melodious
throughout. The electronic part included "sampled" clarinet
accompaniment as well as recordings of himself accompanying himself and
also some purely electronic sounds.

The big surprise was that, if I didn't watch his fingers carefully, I
lost track of which was the electronic part and which was him playing in
real time.

He would begin a melody acoustically on his bass, and two or three
recorded clarinets would join him after a measure or two, along with
perhaps some recorded sounds or percussion. After a minute or two, he
would remove his mouthpiece from his mouth, just as one or more of the
recorded parts would end, but "his" part would continued to play. I
would realize that somewhere along the line, he had 'traded parts' with
the recording and I hadn't heard the switch. After a few repetitions
of this, I decided it didn't matter which part he was playing at any
given moment, and I didn't try to keep track. It was all good music.
Time to close my eyes and just listen.

One of his amusing anecdotes was a suite called "Ten Children".
Apparently his young son challenged him to "Write some music that I
like, Dad!". Dad=A0accepted the challenge and wrote 15 or 20 pieces.
The son approved of 10 of them, and now Dad performs them as a suite.

Lowenstern ended his performance with "Spasm", which I guess is a
standard in some circles (?). It was OK, but I liked his other music
better.

He calls his current show "Live From New York", and I recommend it. It
deserved a larger audience than the 30-35 people who attended tonight.

All told, an unusually musical day for me, and all of it both new and
first-rate.

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