 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-09-26 22:43
Does anyone know a way to access the video of Danny Kaye conducting the NYPO? I saw it a few years ago, and still find myself wanting to cite it in discussions of what conducting IS, at its best. For me, in that concert, he reminded a collection of jaded professionals what they REALLY wanted to do -- and then did it with them.
There's a perhaps apocryphal story of him being given advice before the first rehearsal: "You'll be OK, I think; just be careful of Harold Gomberg, the first oboe. He's very aggressive towards conductors."
Danny Kaye walked out, and immediately said, "WHICH ONE OF YOU GUYS IS GOMBERG?!!!"
"ONE WORD OUT OF YOU.....!!!!"
...so of course, Gomberg was his friend for life.
And, I just saw 'The Five Pennies' again, for the first time in many years. I'd seen it as a teenager, but obviously am now, as a mature player with children, more open to its resonances.
What a wonderful musician he was.
Tony
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2012-09-26 23:37
His conducting in the Expector General is also worth a look, on utube too.
richard smith
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Author: Paula S
Date: 2012-09-27 10:09
That is fantastic! I laughed my socks off when he shouted out 'beauuuuuuuutiful'.
I loved him when I was a kid, especially singing his 'Inchworm' song along with many other wonderful songs. Thanks for posting! :-)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-09-27 10:31
Thanks for those links, Glenn. I suppose it was a bit stupid of me not to think of Youtube, but the last time I looked was before Youtube was around; and then, there seemed to be no way to get at the material.
So I wondered whether things had changed -- and they had!
Tony
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2012-09-27 11:47
There has to be a tongue-twister routine in there somewhere - "The hobo with the oboe is the new conductor no-go - Barry with the clari is the reed that you need"
Or something like that.
Vanesa
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Author: Paula S
Date: 2012-09-27 12:11
This isn't Danny Kaye but it so sends up classical performance in the best possible way .
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Author: Paula S
Date: 2012-09-27 12:14
This isn't Danny Kaye but it so sends up classical performance in the best possible way .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7GeKLE0x3s
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2012-09-27 16:18
He conducted us in Baltimore many years ago for a pension concert and we could hardly play half the time. He had the audience and us in stitches and was not a bad conductor despite the fact that he could not read a note of music, his admittance not mine. Still laughing when I think of him.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: ned
Date: 2012-09-28 00:56
Danny Kaye was certainly an entertaining conductor. I can't comment on his expertise, but others say he was very good, so I'll leave it at that.
As for the film ''The Five Pennies'', this production was just one of a number of Hollywood bio-pics shot in those days about various musicians such as Nichols, Krupa, Goodman, Miller, Berlin, Porter........and the list goes on. I occasionally watch these myself mainly for snippets of music and there are, to my delight, three or four, where Barney Bigard gets a guernsey.
Unfortunately, Hollywood being as it was then, scriptwriters rarely let facts get in the way of a good story, to the point where in most of these bio-pics, actual fact and historical continuity seem to be flung out the nearest window.
Whilst the music in TFP is, overall, quite acceptable, there are some cringeworthy moments in it. I have just had a look on Youtube at the ''Red walking in to the club'' clip and also the ''duet with Louis'' clip at the club. They are laughable, and that's being kind.
How would YOU like some upstart walking up the floor, uninvited, playing the ''Battle Hymn of the Republic'', doing his best to upstage the band? I guess Louis was paid handsomely enough not to concern himself with this atrocious piece of.........what shall I call it..........bulldust?
Then there is the - we would be led to believe - unrehearsed version of ''The Saints'', replete with off-the-cuff verbal banter and unwritten key changes. Wow these jazz musos ARE good aren't they? You know........they can not only anticipate all the key changes, this six piece combo can actually sound like a twelve piece big band at the same time.
Fortunately, nowdays with cable television, I can fast forward through the dross (about 90%) of these films and stop just at the good bits...............you know what I mean, I'm sure................real musos playing real music.
Still if banality is your wont....................(sigh)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-09-28 11:20
>> How would YOU like some upstart walking up the floor, uninvited, playing the ''Battle Hymn of the Republic'', doing his best to upstage the band? I guess Louis was paid handsomely enough not to concern himself with this atrocious piece of.........what shall I call it..........bulldust? >>
Danny Kaye was only *pretending* to play the cornet.
Didn't you know that?
Tony
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-09-28 16:51
....and another secret I can tell you: you know Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers?...well, they wouldn't REALLY have been able to dance together like that on first meeting.
In fact, they rehearsed it quite a lot, I found out.
And, the corps de ballet in Lac de Cygnes: [whisper]...they aren't REALLY swans, you know[/whisper].
Tony
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2012-09-28 17:29
Gosh, Tony, I had no idea!
As a friend of mine used to say, "reality is for people who can't handle drugs".
<little or no clarinet content>
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Author: ned
Date: 2012-09-29 05:25
Tony Pay wrote: ''Danny Kaye was only *pretending* to play the cornet.
Didn't you know that?''
---------------------------------------------
Indeed, I did.
What I was attempting, in fact, was to highlight some of the preposterous situations in this film.
The scriptwriters have written these ludicrous scenes, which are quite clearly so removed from real life, as to make TFP in to a hammy comedy. I mentioned the word ''scriptwriters'' more than once in the first post, so I figured that all and sundry would understand the direction from which I was coming.
There is NO way that these two scenes could in any way mimic real life and I was asking the reader of my comments to place himself/herself in the situation that the Louis character (playing himself, as it was in this instance) was placed. One needs to use empathy in this instance.
So, let me just make it clear again, if some Red Nichols type of character pranced up to the bandstand toward any jazz group that I happened to be playing in, or listening to, he'd be laughed off the stage........or worse probably.
****************************************************************
and he also wrote: ''....and another secret I can tell you: you know Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers?...well, they wouldn't REALLY have been able to dance together like that on first meeting.''
----------------------------------------------
I'm assuming that this was also directed at me, and if so, thank you for both of your condescending comments.
What you say is blindingly obvious - they rehearsed their steps and dialogue - as did Louis and Danny Kaye - and I am well aware that Kaye mimed Nichols' playing.
The other thing common to these two separate cinematic incidents, and worthy of pointing out, is that they are both fictitious - that is, they did not happen - they are flights of the scriptwriters imagination.
The one thing however, which resonates with me about TFP is that it is almost complete balderdash, interspersed with some fairly reasonable music. I think my 9:1 ''watchable'' viewing ratio is fairly close to the mark.
So, if one wants a second rate comedy with some music thrown in, watch TFP.
If one really wants to know the life story of Red Nichols, then one should go and read a book and play a few of his recordings.
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Author: ned
Date: 2012-09-29 05:27
Tony Pay wrote: ''What a wonderful musician he was.''
Ed Palanker wrote: ''.........was not a bad conductor despite the fact that he could not read a note of music, his admittance not mine''
-------------------------------------------------------
So, how did he do it then?
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2012-09-29 14:50
Liking or not liking Danny Kaye movies is a matter of personal taste; but, as a movie critic in real life (if any), I think ned has a point. Yes, the audience is in on the jokes. Yes, we know (at least, we know today, regardless of how honest, or not, the studio ballyhoo might have been when the movies were released) that Danny Kaye didn't read the music, conduct competently or play instruments on the soundtrack. We're not supposed to care about that. We're not supposed to confuse the character with the actor who plays him. We're supposed to suspend disbelief and lose ourselves in the movie.
But when it's a Danny Kaye movie, I can't do what the studio expects me to do. I watch the character up there on the screen and all I see is Danny Kaye hamming it up, chewing the scenery, over the top, choose your cliché for such broad farce. Because my dad loves Danny Kaye movies, I've sat through most of them over the years. I reached LD-50 long ago. (LD-50 is "lethal dose 50" -- the point in the experiment when half the lab rats die.) Now I can't stand Danny Kaye any more -- couldn't even sit through one of those links GBK provided. Maybe that's my deficiency and not Danny Kaye's, but that's the way it is.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-09-29 18:29
I understand what Lelia writes, but cannot go along with what ned writes. Indeed, Lelia makes the distinction clear.
Ned tries to invoke 'reality'. The thing to see in this -- as in everything actually -- is that what is 'real' depends on your point of view, as I was trying to make clear by my Astaire/Rogers and Swan Lake examples.
Danny Kaye, a master of pretence, makes us wonder what a 'real' conductor is when he stands up in front of the NYPO. He makes ME wonder that, and I've played with some very great conductors, men who showed my colleagues and myself unequivocally that our possibilities were greater than we thought they were.
On the occasion of Kaye's first appearance with the NYPO, Dmitri Mitropoulos (the then musical director of the orchestra) is reported to have said: "Here is a man who is not musically trained, who cannot even read music, and he gets more out of my orchestra than I ever have." Ned asks, "How did he do it?" -- to which I can only reply, "Yes!", because anything else demeans the mystery of how they, and we, can be so wholly swept along.
Or, I could say, "He pretended, but pretended very well," because, in a way, 'pretending' is all we ever do. And, he was an honest and genuine man, which is more than I can say for some of the people who stand up in front of us.
Lelia isn't swept along; well, that's her privilege.
In the scene you complain about, because he's been made drunk, he finds it possible to be a 'pretender' to Louis Armstrong, instead of being a 'complainer' to his own band leader. (Incidentally, Armstrong plays out in the film a generosity of spirit I've experienced myself in the 'real' world by the best jazz players, even if ned doesn't count himself among them.) By doing that, the Red Nichols character demonstrates to himself, in the conventions of the story, that 'pretending', in that other sense, can succeed.
Is this 'real'? Well, no, probably, in the life history of Red Nichols. But in the zany world of this Hollywood genre, it has a message for us; as does much of the rest of the film, if you're willing to let it.
Sometimes Hollywood, even in its crassness, can succeed. Remember, these films are made by real people, not all of whom are motivated simply by commercial considerations. With Danny Kaye in the mix, I can imagine that many people gave of their best, just as the NYPO did in the videos that Karl linked to.
It's worth remembering that what any piece of work 'is' can't be reduced to the intentions of the people that produce it. Composers, for example, are quite often poor judges of how their scores are best approached, and novelists can be surprised by explicit features of their texts that had not entered their conscious awareness as they wrote them.
For me, if not for Lelia, they made a better film than they were perhaps trying to make; partly because Danny Kaye was something of a genius.
Finally, all this IS relevant to playing the clarinet. For my money, it's a darn sight more relevant than ligature-obsession.
Tony
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2012-10-01 11:47
Tony, I doubt that you can talk me into becoming a Danny Kaye fan, but I've changed my mind about a lot of movies over the decades; and your perspective on "The Five Pennies" is so different from the expectations I brought to the film many years ago that you've convinced me I should take another look at it.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-10-01 13:56
Even well-known conductors can lose it. If you look at a Boston Pops film when Fiedler was in his dotage (e.g. Ann-Sophie Mutter's U.S. debut in the Mendelssohn Concerto), his movements had nothing to do with the music. Friends who played in the Pops said the first thing the veterans told you was that if you watched Fiedler, you were doomed. Every memoir of someone who played under Malcolm Sargent says the same.
Everyone knew that Danny Kaye only pretended to conduct. They expected him to play it for the laughs. He and over-the-top were Siamese twins. Victor Borge had the same act, but less manic. Sound effects and (gentle) pratfalls were his stock in trade. I haven't watched a Kaye movie in years, but I still remember "Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen" and "The pellet with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon."
Danny Kaye could sing very well. The "business" came straight out of the Yiddish theater. Joel Grey and Mel Brooks still make a living out of it.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Chris J
Date: 2012-10-01 17:21
Is he really only acting?
Look at section 14 of 17
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGJebvovdkM&feature=relmfu
Leaving aside all the hard work of rehearsing the orchestra (that DK may not have done...) - the job on the night is to bring the performance out of the rehearsal.
As a comedian, his skill is characterising and caricaturing. He exaggerates comedic situations - makes them larger than life.
Watching that particular section, he clearly has a great engagement with the orchestra. he gives absolute permission to go to extremes when playing and directs as such. That it is not a "serious" concert will probably reduce some level of performance anxiety and reservation in itself. By allowing a mirroring of musical exaggeration to comedic exaggeration he gets a performance that might otherwise not be achieved.
I can see many reasons how the orchestra could react and perform in way that any other conductor would find it hard to draw out. The trick would be to replicate that level of energy in a more sober performance setting.
Chris
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-10-01 20:11
>> The trick would be to replicate that level of energy in a more sober performance setting.>>
Yes. I'm not advocating booking Danny Kaye to do Rudolf Kempe's job of conducting Mahler's First Symphony.
I'd put it a different way, though. 'Energy' isn't quite the right word.
It's not so much what the conductor DOES, as who he or she IS with regard to the music, the musicians and the performance, that is important.
Danny Kaye demonstrates that in his sphere, as Rudolf Kempe did in his.
And that's why technical wizardry, instruments (and even ligatures:-) are secondary considerations for superlative clarinet playing -- even though we have to produce the sounds, and therefore have to manage those things.
Tony
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2012-10-02 12:52
>> It's not so much what the conductor DOES, as who he or she IS with regard to the music, the musicians and the performance, that is important.
>>
Really? Taken literally, that statement seems awfully extreme. You mean it doesn't matter, for instance, if the conductor stands up there and swans around emoting to the point of not bothering to beat time?
That's not a hypothetical question. Coincidentally, there's an article dealing with this subject in the Style section of today's Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/nso-opens-with-pretty-sounds-fancy-dresses-striking-decor/2012/10/01/49366a3a-0c0a-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html
In a mixed review of the opening concert in Washington, D.C.'s National Symphony Orchestra season, Anne Midgette writes about the musicians and the music director, Christoph Eschenbach,
>They should be happy. They're in one of the best-paid orchestras in the United States, and they have a leader with a lot of enthusiasm. Of course, they can't always tell when he's giving the downbeat, and the second violinists play almost exclusively to his back, since he spends so much time turned toward the firsts, but why let details get in the way of your enjoyment? Money isn't a measure of musical value, but if you're making enough of it, you may not care.>
Now, that's an exceptionally snarky comment. I have no idea whence it comes: whether she pulled it out of the air or whether any musicians told her that they're putting up with Eschenbach for the sake of a good paycheck. I often disagree with Midgette's approach to music criticism. Our critic-in-chief here used to be Tim Page, who now contributes only on occasion, from afar. I wish we had him back, although Midgette's writing has improved a great deal over the years from the grotesquely purple prose that used to make it difficult to understand what she meant.
She does know music, however. She's a bad writer but she's not a fraud. She goes on to cite specific examples of ensemble breakdowns in this concert. For instance:
>Beethoven's "Creatures of Prometheus" Overture opened with chords so fractured that they actually sounded as if they began with a grace note ....>
And with regard to Eschenbach's conducting style, regardless of what his musicians may or may not have blabbed about it to a reporter, she's quite right. I'm only an amateur and so I discount the fact that, sitting down below in the audience, I can't follow him. But the ensemble does go raggedy now and then. I can hear for a fact that the pros up there can't always follow him, either. And I think that matters.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2012-10-02 13:16)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-10-02 15:04
Wilhelm Furtwängler had an infamously mushy beat, which you can see on the videos. Of course the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic could easily play with no conductor, but even they produced "that's how the batter splatters" entrances on, for example, the Beethoven 3rd or Egmont Overture.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-10-02 15:25
Lelia wrote:
>>Quote:
"It's not so much what the conductor DOES, as who he or she IS with regard to the music, the musicians and the performance, that is important.
Really? Taken literally, that statement seems awfully extreme. You mean it doesn't matter, for instance, if the conductor stands up there and swans around emoting to the point of not bothering to beat time?>>
I don't think you can really get from what I said to the situation that you describe. To do so, you have to take 'IS' as 'swans around emoting to the point of not bothering to beat time', as well as ignore the 'so much'.
We musicians HATE the swan-arounders, especially when they do it for the audience. (You may notice that Danny Kaye, apart from a few jokes, does most of what he does FOR THE PLAYERS. And you hear them respond.)
When someone is a really good conductor, there are some moments when beating time isn't important, and there are some moments when beating time IS important. But there are no moments when the (admittedly indescribable) context I've been trying to hint at is absent. Furtwangler was notoriously unclear; but they said that the whole sound of the BPO changed one time when he simply appeared at the back of the hall in someone else's rehearsal.
It's very difficult to convey what I'm talking about to someone who isn't already inside the orchestral world. The question of accuracy of ensemble might be a case in point. Some conductors make it easy to play together, but in another dimension fail to represent to you sufficiently good reason why you should care, really, whether it's together or not. Others make it much harder, but have their players so desperate to have it right that they are on the edge of their seats about the matter, and so succeed.
For that sort of reason, some very good musicians, as well as some very good technicians, fail to be very good conductors. Even if they have the technique, they lack something beyond technique, to do with (for want of a better way of putting it) how they ARE with the music, the musicians and the performance.
I played for Eschenbach once, and though it was many years ago, and though I had considerable respect for his musicianship, I wouldn't have said that he was a natural conductor. It's difficult to know without greater knowledge of the situation what should be done about the ensemble problems your critic mentions; perhaps the orchestra itself needs to take more responsibility, which of course might happen if they go on getting that sort of critical response to their chording.
But actually, reading the complete review, I see it's not THAT bad. (She's 'a bit of a one', though, as you point out:-)
Tony
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2012-10-03 00:00
Ned, there were many fine musicians in the past that could not read music. The great jazz painist Earl Garner is one that comes to mind. Keye was able to bring the music alive when he conducted but of course would only conduct the pieces he knew by ear. When I said he was a fine musician I wasn't comparing him to other conductors. It was more of a general compliment. I don't think he would have done much with Mahlers 6 th symphony. Let's just say, he was musical and was able to keep a beat. :-)
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2012-10-04 14:20
For the time being, I must renege on my vow to re-watch "The Five Pennies." Netflix hasn't got it and neither have I. If/when a copy turns up, I'll take another look.
Tony Pay wrote,
>> When someone is a really good conductor, there are some moments when beating time isn't important, and there are some moments when beating time IS important. But there are no moments when the (admittedly indescribable) context I've been trying to hint at is absent.>>
... and so forth. That all makes sense. I'll admit to baiting you a bit. Thanks for spelling it out. ;-)
Btw, Tony Pay is a good person to comment on this stuff because he's an excellent conductor himself. I attended a fine performance he conducted from first chair of the winds of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.) a few years back. The musicians, all first-rate, sat in a configuration that enabled them to see each other. They had played together a lot. They knew their music thoroughly. They didn't need somebody to thrash out the beat in front of them. He conducted with subtlety (no swooping, no flailing, no chair-mambo) but he cued the tempo, the entrances and the dynamics clearly.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: FDF
Date: 2012-10-04 18:42
Lelia,
I watched "The Five Pennies" the other day on Amazon Streaming Videos. With Prime the movie was free. Thought you might like to know.
Forest
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2012-10-05 17:58
Thanx, but this computer isn't fast enough to watch streaming videos on it. It can't even handle the little YouTube clips very well. The sound goes out of sync with the video; then I get the stalled picture with the timer circling over and over until I cuss and give up.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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