Spring Resurrection

Much as I can whine and moan about San Francisco being a cultural backwater -- at least when compared to Paris, New York or Barcelona -- I am often surprised to see that it has much more going for it than I give it credit for having.

Last night I went to the symphony which had a prelude of our mayor -- er, Lieutenant Governor candidate -- presenting Michael Tilson Thomas with the cadre of Grammys won earlier this year. Besides the Mayor's out of turn reference to Jerry Garcia, it was a wonderful evening with Tilson Thomas conducting Mahler's Second or "Resurrection" Symphony. What a perfect prelude to spring with all it's bombast and redemption emerging out of despair. I remember it being a favorite during the early days of HIV/AIDS, and there has been enough distance from that era for the words to have a new resonance.

O believe,
You were not born for nothing!
Have not for nothing, lived, suffered!

What was created
Must perish,
What perished, rise again!

Cease from trembling!
Prepare yourself to live!

O Pain, You piercer of all things,
From you, I have been wrested!
O Death, You masterer of all things,
Now, are you conquered!

With wings which I have won me,
In love’s fierce striving,
I shall soar upwards
To the light which no eye has penetrated!
Its wing that I won is expanded,
and I fly up.

I am not sure if I would put Bernstein's version above Tilson Thomas', but I was always deeply moved when Bernstein conducted the Vienna Symphony and reinstated Mahler as part of the repertoire after a long absence and against objections of many of the musicians. It seemed to serve as an appropriate resurrection of Mahler himself, and a reminder to me of the importance of patience on many fronts

What Will You Play in 2020?

Are you dreading 2012? Depending on the state of that year's election, I may move to Antigua, Guatemala, no matter what the Mayan calendar says. Or, more safely, Barcelona, 20% unemployment or not.

I've also been envisioning the year 2020 a lot lately. I like the ring of it better than 2012 anyway, and there's enough time to get ready for it. Lately I've thought I will learn to play a musical instrument or at least play one better than the ones I've tried through the years -- piano, recorder, flute and snare drums. I was, however, quite a good xylophone player in my high school days and always had my heyday during the Nutcracker Suite.

Does the turntable count as an instrument? Since the days of Sugarhill Records onwards, I guess it has. I used to buy 12-20 CDs a week. Now not that many in a year. However, I've been in something of a frenzy of uploading old LPs. I used to give the line "I'm not a vinyl purist," but that was in the days before USB turntables. Granted, I am uploading the work of true artists and performers, but part of what I love about LP uploads is that it's not a passive act. One must dust the LP and check the stylus for dust, adjust the tone arm for perfect weight pressure. I equate it to the Japanese Tea ceremony. I didn't grow the leaves, I didn't make the pot, I didn't drill the well for the water. But I brought all of these elements together for the perfect marriage of elements.
Last weekend, I heard Ashley Judd on "What Do You Know" who, in explaining her decision to go back and study international affairs clarified that at the peak of her Hollywood success she was not playing the scene but staying home to listen to Beethoven and read the Russians. "And avoid STDs," she added with a wink in her voice. It was fitting to hear that just as I've been transferring a collection of Beethoven -- a rather staggering 10 LPs of his entire symphonies and overtures, several of which I have on CD, but I like the idea of having them from the LP which is in near pristine condition. It has both aesthetic and sentamental value. It was passed down from a family friend of my parents. My mother had two best friends who whose husbands were retired members of the Mexico City and Berlin Philharmonics. The Beethoven collection, not surprisingly, came from the latter after he passed on in the early 1990s and his wife wanted me to have them. I rememer adolescent years of going to his house where dusting the turntable and recounting what brought him and his wife to the small Midwestern town where he whiled away his final years as a German professor at a small liberal arts college.

When the Third Reich emerged, he left the Philharmonic to go into the diplomatic corps, was captured by the British in Cameroon in 1939, interned in Jamaica and never performed professionally again. As these sounds pass from LP to MP3, I try to think where they will be in 2020 and if any vestige of his memory will pass with them.
In the meantime, I hope to have my collection of Poulenc uploaded by or long before 2012. I am getting close on having his complete works in my system.

Scott Walker Starter Kit

Since I've been shocked to hear from several intelligent, with-it friends who have no idea who Scott Walker is, here are two favorite tracks. These early solo career outings suggest that even though he was being mislabeled as an MOR crooner at the time, there is more than a little evidence that he is no Jack Jones.

"It's Raining Today" has those wonderfully weird and spooky strings that sound both elegant and foreboding. "Boy Child" is evidence of lyrical abilities, and an approach to emotion that is both distant and intense.

More '80s Hair

Since my video from yesterday generated such excitement, shock and disgust at the sight of my 1980s hair, I thought I'd share this treasure trove from the archives I continue to cull this week: My official 1983 Haircut 100 Calendar. Don't get your hopes up, this baby won't be showing up on eBay anytime soon. Bribe me, and I might show it to you but with the drapes down in case anyone is peeking in the windows and might rob me.

Music and Meaning

We met for tea, juice and scones the way we used to meet for real drinks and fancy sampler platters at half past six in some spot looking down at Market. I drink much less now, and he drinks not at all. The dog I gave him for the holidays six years ago may be dying, and I agree to tend to it Saturday night while he's on a date.

"Provided you don't have a date," he says with the usual after-the-fact concern that is more than familiar.

He laughs with genuine amusement when I counter, "A date, at my age I'd settle for a fig."

Hasn't he heard this a thousand times before? I've lost track myself of how many time's I've offered it like a plate of circus nuts.

We saunter across the street to Virgin Megastore, and he seems genuinely concerned when I mention speculation that it may soon be out of business, the final big box retailer offering music as tangible collateral, not some abstract concept that might disappear with the passing of a giant horse shoe magnet.

Both of us mask our likely disdain for the others selections as we sort through discs. All those years ago when he appeared at my door, he expressed such interest in what he might learn from me, like Ms. Doolittle arriving for tutoring to work in a shop or Leonard Bast following one of the Schlagel sisters through the rain from the "Music and Meaning" lecture, filled with pragmatic intent to recover his umbrella now lost in a sea of others in an exquisite porcelain vase in the hallway.

We part once more, neither finding anything of interest. I saunter up the hill, compelled to buy The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, a volume that called out to me months earlier but disappeared into some obscure mental cubbyhole. I realize that he never cared about the difference between Ives and Yves Saint Laurent, and I find myself searching for why the former once meant so much to me.

Walking home in solitude, its very essence brings a faint second of despair, and then I begin humming, finding new meaning in the lyric:

Flying too high with some guy in the sky
Is my idea of nothing to do

Music, meaning and lost umbrellas make me glad to be heading home.

Shiny, Shiny Boots of Erik Satie

John Cale and Erik Satie are two of my favorite composers, but I never knew they were so close. It's fitting then, that I had Cale's Paris 1919 and Satie's Parade on my iPod for the long Miami-San Francisco flight last week. Now the two dots connect.

Don't Make Me Choose

It seems so fitting that there seems to be a theme of life 100 years ago weaving itself through several posts, beginning with the Centennial of Oklahoma through the buildings I visited in Barcelona, most built between 1890 and 1910, and the visions of my home through the eyes of my cat/house sitter looking like an absinthe infused dream of Gaudi and Georges Méliés.

I hate picking absolute favorites, but if I were forced:

• My desert island CD would contain the complete works of Debussy, but I would prefer to live on a Mediterranean not desert island since that's my favorite climate. I hate tropics even more than deserts if you're keeping track.
• I would choose Casa Batlló over La Pedrera. Its chimneys and city views are more intimate and comforting to me, and the crowds are smaller.
• I'm not that fond of outerspace or sci-fi films, but I would chose Georges Méliés A Trip to the Moon as being vastly superior to Star Wars and Star Trek and slightly superior to Blade Runner. What other film has been sampled by both the Smashing Pumpkins and Michael Todd?
  

On that bent, I have been watching a lot of Méliés since heading back to San Francisco, and I keep having this dream about being on the roof of Casa Batlló at a party thrown by Proust with Gaudi, Méliés and Debussy as revelers. Reynaldo Hahn and I dance to one of his own chamber compositions as Proust looks on seething with jealousy as I feel Reynaldo's thick Venezuelan beard warm on my cheek as he speaks to me in broken Catalan as the moon plays games of hide and seeks with Gaudi's mysterious chimneys.

Utterly Random Russian Composer Reference #348

Like most kiddos in music appreciation class in grammar school, I approached the Russian composers with typical trepidation and sleepiness. While I've come to appreciate the works of Rachmaninoff through the years, most LPs and CDs are accompanied by photos of the distinguished, elder maestro such as the one above.

The shot below was in this morning's Chronicle's pink pages and promped a visual "Damn!" as I flipped through the pages and has made me listen to Morceaux de Fantaisie, with an entirely different perspective.