Roman History Books and More

house of augustus opens to the public

From the BBC:

Treasures revealed
The house of Roman Emperor Augustus opens to the public

And here is Mary Beard on this:   The house of Augustus: all mod cons?

roman forum no longer free

via About.com:  Roman Forum no longer free

The current Colosseum and Palatine Hill combination ticket will also include admission to the Roman Forum and will now be valid for two days.

What is the world coming too?  <SIGH>

From my experience, one needs more time, i.e., being able to go back at will would be a nice idea.

a visit to fishbourne

Bingley, who kindly helps me with this blog, recently went home and along the way visited Fishbourne (Wikipedia, handle with care).   He brought back his impressions and a few photos.

Enjoy his Visit to Fishbourne!
_________

Fishbourne Roman Palace
(Tempus History & Archaeology)
by Barry Cunliffe

A Body in the Bathhouse
A Falco mystery by Lindsey Davis which takes place at the Palace of Fishbourne, with King Togidubnus in residence.

mosaic makers and their craft

Longinus Flavius Libertus, the freedman sleuth of Rosemary Rowe’s  The Legatus Mystery (from the Libertus Mysteries Series), is a pavement maker, a designer and maker of mosaics.

Roman mosaics were usually made of small square tesserae of 10mm x 10mm (3/8" x 3/8") size.

Below are a number of links/images of extant Roman mosaics, most of them quite elaborate.  It seems doubtful that our Libertus did much more than geometric patterns –which could be very intricate though – but may have had other design templates.  Occasionally, the mosaicist would sign his work, for example, The artist at work. 

In my travels in 1999 through Germany, I went to Bad Kreuznach near Mainz, where two mosaic floors were discovered in the remains of a Roman villa, in 1893 and 1966, and are now preserved in a museum barn.  They are presumed to be from the 2nd century AD, the period in which the Libertus mysteries are set.  So they are quite appropriate for our upcoming chat on February 7.

The better known is the Gladiator Mosaic, the other the Oceanus Mosaic, a favored theme.  (Click on the images below. Oh dear, old software, I have to re-edit those!)

roman knowledge of britain

Although Pytheas of Massilia voyaged to Britain and probably circumnavigated the island in the 4th century BC, his account of his travels was not well received by his contemporaries. My review of Barry Cunliffe's account of Pytheas' voyage can be read here.

So what did Romans know of the geography of Britain? Julius Caesar visited the island twice, and left us with this account of its geography. Strabo included this information about Britain in his Geography, which Sarah Pothecary dates to 17 - 23 AD.

Tacitus includes some incidental information about the geography of the island in his biography of Agricola, who had been governor of Britain. During his governorship Britain was circumnavigated. One of Plutarch's philosophical dialogues, has a character named Demetrius who had come from Britain where he had been sent on a voyage of exploration by the emperor's order (see Chapter XVIII).

Ogilvie and Richmond in their commentary on the Agricola suggest that the information in Ptolemy's Geography about northern Britain derives from Agricola's time in Britain. For what Roman maps of Britain would have looked like, see romanmap.com and have fun with the maps and place names.

gone fishing again . . .

I'll be out of town for a few days this week, enjoying fresh ocean air and sans laptop, so blogging may be sporadic, depending on what Bingley can do. 

tangentially: the blind traveler

Long before a blind man went up Mt. Everest, there was John Holman (1786–1857).   In  A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler, Jason Roberts narrates the astounding story of Lieutenant John Holman, who as a blind man traveled through much of the world on his own, and on very modest means.  Holman's service in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars had been cut short by a very painful form of rheumatism, and soon thereafter he was stricken by a sudden onset of total blindness.  He achieved an astonishing adjustment to his affliction, considering the times he lived in:  he went to university, even studying medicine;  and when his rheumatism flared up again, he went to the Continent on the advice of his doctors, the first of his several travels, which included a circumnavigation of the world.  With his utmost desire of independence, he succesfully evaded his younger brother who was supposed to accompany him, and from then on, he mostly traveled alone.

philadelphia orchestra at tanglewood

Yesterday, on a perfect day – sunny, absolutely blue sky, and pleasantly cool – I did another trip up to Tanglewood to listen to the Philadelphia Orchestra under its music director Christoph Eschenbach playing  Beethoven  (The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43, Ballet Music and Symphony No. 8 in F major);  and Tchaikovsky's  Symphony. No. 5 in E minor.

It was loud!  I'm kidding …  It was a great performance.   After a nice and briskly played Prometheus, we got to the meat with Beethoven's Symphony No. 8, which is somewhat of a tour de force of exuberance, jests and jokes. I found some online program notes.

tanglewood all-in-one

I'm trying to resolve some image opening issues in Mozilla Firefox and Netscape, meaning that right now I can only put 10 posts on the frontpage for it to work.

Thus here are my Tanglewood posts together for easier access (you may also go to the  Arts, Music, Movies  & Theatre Index):

shostakovich string quartets
an orgy of mozart at tanglewood (can't get the URL to work, sigh - go to Arts, Music, Movies  & Theatre Index)
a stravinsky performance and three (living) composers
a little music education
hans graf conducting
the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (I)
the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (II), opera
the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (III), two concerti
the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (IV), the fromm concert
the sterling and francine clark art institute
all good things come to an end . . .

Addendum 8/14:  philadelphia orchestra at tanglewood

all good things come to an end . . .

My last, and by now very hot, day did come and it was time to say goodbye, Linda & Phil, see you next time!

One final look at the lake …

… and my home away from home

… and I was off, into 100 degree plus the farther I got south.

On the way,  I stopped to pick up some lunch at my tea dealer,  Harney & Sons Fine Teas, in Millerton, N.Y.   There they have a store, with a tasting room, a gift shop, and a nice little tea room, where they serve healthy and tasty sandwiches, and iced Chai.  The latter kept my going until I was home, where I barely  escaped  – by a couple of street blocks – a power failure caused by the excessive temperatures.

So back to reality.  With all the great music going on, the students having a ball, the rest of us enjoying ourselves, it was often easy to forget the horror that is going on half a globe away…

the sterling and francine clark art institute

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, is probably one of the best small private museums in the country.  We never miss a visit while up in the Berkshires and never get tired of the permanent collection, which is detailed here.

The collectors Sterling and Francine Clark opened the museum in 1955.  Thus, last year the museum celebrated its 50th anniversary, and still does in The Clark: Celebrating 50 Years of Art in Nature and with 50 Favorites – you can view everyone of them online!  This summer's special exhibit pays a tribute to Sterling Clark and his brother Stephen, The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings – extensive online coverage of the exhibit.  The brothers originally collected similar art, but then Stephen earned Sterling's disdain when he started collecting moderns beginning with Cézanne, a period  Sterling could not relate to.  He considered some of Matisse's works “awful things”.

Later, the brother had a falling out over inheritance and did not speak to each other any longer.  While Sterling founded his museum, Stephen became involved with MOMA, and later gave part of his collection to that institution, as well as to other museums.  He also was the founder of the Fenimore Art Museum (American, folk, and native art) and the National Baseball Hall of Fame both in Cooperstown, New York where both brothers grew up.

This is the first time that collections by the brothers have been shown side by side (poor Sterling is probably revolving in his grave), and fascinating it is.  They both liked Renoir, as well as American painters such as Winslow Homer.  Sterling collected John Singer Sargent, Stephen preferred Thomas Eakins and Edward Hopper.

The exhibit will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from May 22 through August 19,  2007.

In the permanent collection, there was a small special exhibit of a new acquisition, Delacroix and the Horse, which was shown opposite drawings (black and colored chalk on paper) and sculptures by Degas, which I did prefer over Delacroix.  Also a Toulouse-Lautrec, “The Jockey”.

Then, I went to look for my favorite (ghastly?) piano, designed by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Next to it hang “The Women of Amphissa”, and another one which we had not seen before, “Preparations for the Festivities”.  For more on Alma-Tadema see my earlier blog.  My friend loves the Singer Sargent Fumée d'ambre gris.

All in all a perfect day, escaping the heat…

11/11/06 postscript

the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (IV), the fromm concert

The Festival of Contemporary Music always concludes Monday night with the Fromm Concert.  From the website:

The Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, founded by the late Paul Fromm in the fifties, has been located at Harvard University since 1972. Over the course of its existence, the Fromm Foundation has commissioned over 300 new compositions and their performances, and has sponsored hundreds of new music concerts and concert series, among them Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music and the Fromm Concert Series at Harvard University. In 1992-1993, the Paul Fromm Composer-in-Residence program at the American Academy in Rome was founded, and the annual Fromm concert and Paul Fromm Award for Composition at Tanglewood were established.

This year's concert was another of the highlights of the festival, bringing us as sole performance  “Blood on the Floor”  for three jazz soloists and large ensemble (1995) by the English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage.  Turnage, a protégé of Oliver Knussen and Hans Werner Henze, is this summer's composer-in-residence at Tanglewood.  He is also co-composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony.  His works are often based on paintings by Francis Bacon – the title of the work comes from a Bacon painting – poems, and plays.  A Langston Hughes poem allusion is also part of this piece. 

Turnage combines pop, funk, and jazz with classical music, but, as the program notes point out, “crossover”, as opposed to today's commercial term, with Turnage means a true hybrid.

A brief online description of the work.  The individual movements are listed with this CD:  Turnage: Blood on the Floor.  Fast movements alternate with slow ones – “in the good old Baroque pattern”, as the program notes say.  The latter were extensive and extremely helpful, too bad I can't scan and post them here.

To me, “Blood on the Floor” was a riveting piece of music!

The classical jazz soloists were Martin Robertson, soprano saxophone (although he did play at least two different types of saxes);  John Parricelli, guitar;  Peter Erskine, percussion;  and listed, Dave Carpenter, bass – I could not see him though, unless I missed him. There were several guest artists among the ensemble, especially the guitarist Michael Gandolfi.  The conductor was Stefan Asbury, the festival director.

BBC profile of Mark-Anthony Turnage
London Philharmonic profile

the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (III), two concerti

Sunday evening, after a not too inspiring first half, those in the audience who stuck it out were rewarded with two pieces for solo instrument and ensemble:

Ron Ford:  Versus for solo violin and ensemble (2006)
Poul Ruders:  Psalmodies for guitar solo and nine instruments (1989)

Versus, by Ron Ford, was a world music premiere, commissioned by the TMC with support from the Paul Jacobs foundation.  The ensemble consists solely of winds with the exception of two double bases, which contrasts nicely with the violin, which has a quite melodic part.  The soloist, 21-year old Russian born Yevgeny Kutik, a resident of neighboring Pittsfield where his mother Alla Zernitskaya is a music teacher, is a Fellows of this year's Tanglewood Music Center.  He played the part beautifully!  Googling found that he has won various prizes, and most likely has a promising career ahead.  And so has the conductor Kazem Abdullah, another TMC Fellow.  He is the founder and conductor of the Aspen Mozart Orchestra and the University of Cincinnati Community Orchestra, and has been assistant conductor of the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra and the Cincinnati Contemporary Music Ensemble.  In the fall he will become assistant conductor at the Los Angeles Opera.  I saw him several times, and he conducted “Hin und Zurück”.

In contrast, the soloist in Poul Ruders ' (more on him) Psalmodies was David Starobin, a renowned classical guitarist, proponent of contemporary music, and founder of Bridge Records.  Psalmodies was written for him and premiered in 1990.  Tomasz Golka, another TMC Fellow, was the conductor.  The piece consists of eleven movements, beginning and ending with the solo guitar.  The other movements vary in the number instruments playing.  The interactions between the guitar and the ensemble are a bit difficult to describe, all I can say is that it was very enjoyable.  The descriprion of the numbers can be found on this CD:

Ruders: Psalmodies, together with two other works by Ruders, Vox in Rama for violin, clarinet & piano, and Nightshade, for 10 instruments.

the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (II), opera

The absolute highlight for me was the “Triple Bill” opera performance

Paul Hindemith: “Hin und Zurück” (There and Back), a Sketch with Music
Igor Stravinsky: “Mavra”
Elliott Carter: “What Next?” (conducted by James Levine with the composer in the audience)

The sets were by Doug Fitch (temporary available reviews:  Director brings unconventional ideas to opera and What’s Next for Opera).  Slighty surreal but in simple colors, they perfectly fit the stories but were not distracting from the happenings.  The costumes were by Catherine Zuber, and the lighting designer was Clifton Taylor.

Unfortunately, no photography whatsoever was allowed due to copyright protection, i.e., one could not take pictures of the sets & cast at the end of the performances.

Hin und Zurück is a farcical musical sketch, with a jealous husband shooting his wife to death (very funnily done by a little boy running with a bullet from the gun and poking the wife with it) and a midpoint from which everything is played backwards.  The piece begins with a sneeze by an otherwise mute (and deaf) aunt knitting and observing the proceedings, played formidably by Phyllis Curtin, and ends of course with a sneeze too.  Hindemith composed the sketch in 1927 in four days for the Baden-Baden Festival, at a time when unserious opera was de rigeur.

Mavra, composed in 1922, is an opéra bouffe about star-crossed lovers;  musically, compared to Hindemith, rather conservative, combining Stravinsky’s neo-classical period with his then pre-occupation with Tchaikovsky.  It is dedicated to the memory of Pushkin, from which he took the storyline; Glinka, whose influence is also shown;  and Tchaikovsky.  It is the last Russian-themed piece of music Stravinsky would compose.  The character of the lover Vasily, appearing in drag as the cook “Mavra”, has a wonderful buffo drag role.

What Next, a one-act tragic comedy about 40 minutes long, is Elliott Carter’s only opera, composed 1997/98.  Although he has written much for voice, and toyed with Aristophanes'  The Birds  (Mr. Carter studied the classics and literature at Harvard), and  The Emperor’s New Clothes, he didn’t get around to it until he was about 90 years old.  Working with the librettist Paul Griffith, who also took bows, Carter used a highly involved traffic accident sequence in Jaques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot movie Trafic to create the story.  When the curtain rises, a child is sitting on a rock and five adults emerge apparently unharmed from their smashed automobiles but in utter confusion about who they are and how they are related to each other;  and what follows is how the adults perceive each other, never quite getting it, it seems.  This makes for wonderful solos, duos, trios and on so on.  The child is a catalyst of sorts.  At one point, two road workers appear and inspect the scene, but do not notice the people.  One wonders at times, as the program notes author does, are they dead?  However hard they try, the characters can never resolve their situation, and at the end, the audience is left with the question “What Next?”

The singers, all TMC fellows, were outstanding, and they must have loved the Carter opera.

There were two performances on consecutive days.  I had so much fun and, through a mistake, an extra ticket, so that rather than giving it away, I went both times, and was by no means the only one who did so!  On the first day, one got the overall impression, on the second day one could concentrate on the music.

The happenings at the Friday afternoon performance were enlivened by a couple of tremendous thunderstorms, during which rain came through the roof of the “Theatre” building, an old wooden structure, which is the only one with an orchestra pit and stage facility.  It rained not only on the audience, but on the stage too, and the “What Next?” singers adapted quickly with appropriate gestures.  I thought the thunder claps fit quite well into the story...

The Theatre

Postcript:  Heidi Waleson, the Wall Street Journal's opera critic, just gave both the “Don Giovanni” and the “Triple Bill” a rather morose review.

the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (I)

Today is my last day in Lenox, there are no music performances, the play I wanted to go to is sold out, and outside, the humid heat is like a sauna…in other words, the perfect day for blogging…

One of the reasons I came up here at this particular time of the concert season was the annual (43^rd) Festival of Contemporary Music at the Tanglewood Music Center (scroll down), with performances by the TMC Fellows, faculty, and guest artists, which concluded last night.  Stefan Asbury was the Festival Director, and John Harbison the Festival Adviser. Over five days, there were numerous concerts, and I did not go to all of them, partially because there is such a thing as musical overload, like three concerts in one day, and over the weekend I was joined by a friend who is not interested in contemporary music, so we did other things, like visiting the wonderful Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.  However, I certainly caught some of the highlights of the festival and will individually blog forthwith.

Music was by Abrahamsen, Babbitt, Boulez, Campion, Carter, Chasalow, Druckman, Felder, Ford, Gustavson, Hindemith, Jaffe, Jolas, Ligeti, Martino, Norman, Ruders, Staud, Stravinsky, Taylor, and Turnage.  Don Martino had been commissioned to write a violin concerto, but unexpectedly passed away while working on it:  only a 90 seconds fragment is available, which was performed.  Ligeti was added because he too had recently died and was commemorated.  Unfortunately, I missed that performance, I like Ligeti’s music very much.

Here is a summary from the NYT (permanently available only to TimesSelect customers).

Most TMC concerts are perfomed in the Ozawa Hall.  The lawn behind the hall slopes upwards, so one can easily hear the music.

Click on the images for larger size

hans graf conducting

Hans Graf conducted two performances on the weekend.

Saturday brought us the Beethoven Violin Concerto, beautifully executed by Gil Shaham, and the complete  Firebird (scroll down that page and go to "1910 Ballet Score").  As my companion said, what a difference from the Firebird Suite only which one usually hears at concerts.  Another revelation!  It was played without pause, but it was easy to follow from the titles of the individual scenes, and the BSO was at its best.

Sunday, we had Midori (she looks a bit older than in the photo) play Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No.1.   In my opinion, she managed to breathe new life into that old war horse, it was very enjoyable.  Midori, without much fanfare, is celebrating the twentieth anniversary of her famous debut with Zubin Metha and the New York Philharmonic.

Before the concerto, there was Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, always a pleasure to listen to.  Although it's labeled Opus 90, it is a rather early piece, written when the composer was in his early twenties and traveling in Italy.  The final piece was Richard Strauss' tone poem Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks).  Again, one could easily follow the scene titles, which I could find online only in German, where they are a bit more elaborate than the ones listed in the program.  We did enjoy it;  and an aside:  I wish that Strauss' tone poems woulod be performed more often.

The lawn behind the Music Shed fills up before the concert – rain or shine.
A good sound system allows for quite decent listening.

a little music education

Today, I allowed myself a little education.

First, I sat in at a vocal master class conducted by Phyllis Curtin (interview 2002). Curtin, now age 84 and a  TMC alumna herself,  is a Tanglewood institution by now.  She is a marvellous teacher and does not seem to have slowed down.  It was fun listening in and observing.  The walls of the little wooden chamber music hall were plastered with her advice:

. . . words
            ahead
                  of the
                        tone . . .

. . . Tiger Teeth . . .

. . . Inner smile . . . 

Play your upside down cello.

Make room for your ELEPHANT.

I didn't have the nerve after the class to ask her whether I could take a photo of her...

The Chamber Music Hall where the master classes were held

Then, I went to a talk by Austrian guest conductor Hans Graf, currently music director of the Houston Symphony. He talked about conducting and guest conducting, and about his love for contemporary music.  “One can distinguish good contemporary music from bad by looking at the musicians' faces ... If the music is there, the orchestra is there”.

He also talked about his – obviously rewarding – 1975/76 stint as music director of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, and how, for example, he had to write out the score for Webern's Opus 10 (Five Pieces for Orchestra) for the musicians himself.

 
The members' tent were the talk was held

a stravinsky performance and three composers

Tuesday was “Tanglewood on Parade”, a big day for the students at the Tanglewood Music Center (TMC) and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI).  There are performances on the grounds all afternoon, and the entire bash ends with a joint performance by the BSO/TMC orchestras of the “1812 Overture”, live cannons, and fireworks over the lake.

The afternoon brought a TMC presentation of Stravinsky’s chamber music piece l’Histoire du soldat in the wonderful Ozawa  Hall.

…but with a twist: The narrator/performers were three American composers: (on the images from left to right) Milton Babbitt , age 90, “the devil”;  Elliott Carter, age 97, “the soldier”;  and John Harbison, a mere youngster at 68, “the narrator”.  The script had been “tweaked” by James Levine, Elliott Carter, John Harbison and a few others, and amounted to a hilarious leg-pull between the two nonagenarians.  The musical performance, conducted by Tomasz Golka (below at right), was a joy also.  The musicians were Hyunju Lee, violin;  Brandon McLean, double bass;  James Zimmermann, clarinet;  Brad Balliett, bassoon;  John Freeman, trumpet; and Kathryn Curran, trombone.

click on images to enlarge
© Irene B. Hahn, all rights reserved

There was no assigned seating, so I was able to secure a seat close up to take these truly historic photographs after the performance. 

As to Elliott Carter, there are already plans for the 2008 Carter Centenary  underway! Isn’t that tempting fate?

Postscript 7/27:  NYT: With a Nod to Stravinsky, Three Composers Become Stars of the Stage at Tanglewood (short-lived link unless you subscribe to TimesSelect). A quote from Milton Babbitt:

Mr. Babbitt said he had first encountered the piece in 1930. “This,” he said, “is the best performance I’ve ever heard.”

an orgy of mozart at tanglewood

Last weekend was all Mozart, all the time, with the BSO and James Levine here at Tanglewood.  Friday a regular concert, Saturday Don Giovanni – in a concert performance, and the Requiem on Sunday.  The Don Giovanni was marvelous, and acted very well by the singers too. This was – with one exception – a young  international cast, all connected to Levine and the Met in one way or another:

Mariusz Kwiecien  – Don Giovanni
Luca Pisaroni – Leporello (a last minute stand-in, he almost stole the show)
Tamar Iveri – Donna Anna (another stand-in, a wonderful voice!)
Matthew Polenzani – Don Ottavio (who got a lot of applause and press kudos, but I didn’t like the timbre of his voice very much)
Soile Isokoski – Donna Elvira (the above exception, and what a Donna Elvira she was!)
Heidi Grant Murphy – Zerlina
Patrick Carfizzi – Masetto
Morris D. Robinson – Commendatore

There was no director listed, so it is assumed that James Levine was in charge of the (minimal but effective) staging.  At one point he himself got into the act by handing a folio to Leporello, who was about to begin his “catalogue aria”.  “Don Giovanni” is a dramma giocoso, somewhere between opera seria and buffa, and in my opinion, the Don was bit too much buffo. Anyway, great fun was had by all!  Reviews by the NYT and the Boston Globe will probably be up for a minimum of time only.

The Requiem was glorious, with another stellar cast: Soile Isokoski again, Susan Graham (who also sang an aria Friday night), Kenneth Tarver and John Relyea, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus under John Oliver, dependable as always.

Images below tweaked from very dark originals.  Click  to enlarge.

Before the concert: Tanglewood Festival Chorus

Requiem Cast

James Levine

Click on images for larger size

hamlet

Well, Hamlet at Shakespeare & Company was a dud, as far as I'm concerned.

The New York Times (An Active Hamlet subscription required) does not agree, Ben Brantley gives it a glowing review. The play did not move me one bit...

Not that much spectacle is required (or used) to command the attention here. As is almost always the case with productions from Shakespeare & Company, the first priority is to tell a cracking good story and to “speak the speech” so clearly and comprehendingly that even theatergoers new to Shakespeare grasp the plot and characters (and forgive some less-than-subtle performances along the way)

sounded more like often agitated declaming to me.  Our highschool theatre class could have done better.  This being a theatre-in-the-round, I sat right next to Hamlet (sitting in a clear plastic chair) when he made his famous speech, and he left me completely cold.  Here Mr. Brantley is a bit more on my side:

This Hamlet is never more intriguingly thoughtful than when surprised by his father’s living memory. Otherwise, Mr. Asprey’s Hamlet is too impatient to convince as a vacillating philosopher prince, whose resolution is “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.” He does the famous soliloquies with a throwaway grace that makes them less than a main event.

And here we are in unison:

More distracting are the hipster costumes (by Jessica Ford) , which suggest that the court of Elsinore routinely trawls the Top Shop stores for Gaultier and Galliano knockoffs. And while Kevin O’Donnell’s fired-up Laertes is a perfect dimmer mirror to Mr. Asprey’s Hamlet, Ms. Raetz’s Ophelia is too spunky and spiky to morph believably into a suicidal flower child.

I am a bit kinder on Ophelia, she seemed to totter towards suicide from the beginning.

Ah, well, maybe this is for a younger audience.   So much for my comprehension of the performing arts... <grin>.

shostakovich string quartets

Dmitri Shostakovich (wiki, handle with care) was born in 1906, thus, the 100^th anniversary of his death is celebrated this year.

Last night, I heard a performance of the last three string quartets by the Emerson String Quartet in the Chamber Music Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, the summer quarters of the Boston Symphony.

It was a revelation!

In 1937, after his partial “rehabilitation” by composing the Fifth Symphony, Shostakovich felt he could seek an outlet in composing chamber music, a class of music frowned upon by the Soviet government as too elitist.  While not limiting himself to strings, he set out to compose 24 string quartets – one in each key, but managed to write only 15, the last one in 1974, the year before his death.  All were written for the Beethoven Quartet, the Betkhoventsy, and only the last one, the 15^th, was premiered by the Taneyev Quartet because the Betkhoventsy’s cellist passed away during rehearsals.

What is interesting, and I believe unusual, or at least a novelty at the time, is that Shostakovich composed fairly lengthy solo parts for the players.

The 13^th is written in one long movement of three parts;  the 14^th, composed when Shostakovich visited Benjamin Britten, and a happier one, in a three movement format;  but the 15^th has six slow adagio movements, short and musically interrelated, to the extent that I mistook an earlier movement for the one titled “Funeral March.”  In the 13^th, the players are sometimes required to strike the deck of the instrument with the wood of the bow.  Shostakovich has given no explanation for this, but it is striking in it's effect.

The Emerson Quartet, who played with verve and concentration – and standing except for the cellist who sat on a podium – is performing all fifteen quartets during this anniversary year, and I’m eagerly looking forward to the inevitable CD! This was a fairly brief concert for the Emerson:  I remember a performance some 15 years ago at the same place, when they played all six string quartets of Bartok.  Most of the audience left after the fourth, I made it through the fifth, but by then I was mentally exhausted…

BTW, another composer’s anniversary is observed this year: the 250^th year of Mozart’s birth. On Saturday night, there will be a concert performance of “Don Giovianni,” conducted by that opera specialist James Levine, the BSO’s new music director.  Stay tuned!

For tonight, I happened on a free ticket for Shakespeare’s Hamlet…cultura all the way…