Sweet Sixteen
Two weeks of Romeo and Juliet: Bernstein - as in his West Side Story suite, then Prokofiev - as in selections from his ballet music. Add some warm spring sunshine to the mix, and my creative bits begin to feel perky. So here I am, tapping away. Great music, great story, greatest playwright. Also, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has been marking my 40th anniversary as a member of this orchestra (yes, fortieth .... sixteen seems a long way back), and in my little speech I mentioned that if I were condemned to play only one piece every day for the rest of my life, it would have to be the Prokofiev. Several players, who've done a run of the complete ballet, have agreed with me; and I don't think that this is just because Prokofiev, more than any other composer, writes generous red blooded music for every instrument in the orchestra (piccolo to tuba). So, what's this got that others haven't? What does this music 'say' that the words don't? I'll tell you: all human life is there - that's all.
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Its been a wee while since I've posted here. Just as well, as my last epistle on Musical Snobbery caused a bit of a stooshie in a couple of the Scottish papers. Honestly, you express a straightforward opinion on something eminently sensible, and an over-eager journo eager to fill a column jumps on it as though it was the formula for successful alchemy. Still, I'm relived to know that the arts can still make a dent in the news pages, and I did find solace in discovering that "Musical Snobbery" is an anagram of "Incurably Besoms". But I digress...
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His Ninth
I need to have a rave. Not a rant. It's Bruckner.
The stock caricature of him is that he wrote the same symphony over and over again, until death mercifully stopped him half way through what we call the ninth - you'll find eleven symphonies if you count the "0" and "00", and if you go on to count the endless re-writes and revisions......well, don't. Caricature has to grab some facet of truth in order to make its point. So, let's assume he was trying to say something very important, and it being so important, he wanted to get it right, and he was prepared to go on and on and on trying to get it right.
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