Museum Monday 2024/18

 

a detail of Agitation, a tapestry designed by George Harris, now at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Friday Photo 2024/17

 

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco

Poem of the Week 2024/17

When that I was and a little tiny boy,

    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

A foolish thing was but a toy,

    For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's estate,

    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,

    For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas, to wive,

    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

By swaggering could I never thrive,

    For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came unto my beds,

    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

With tosspots still had drunken heads,

    For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world begun,

    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;

But that's all one, our play is done,

    And we'll strive to please you every day.

– William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act V, scene i, ll 391 - 410

He that has and a little tiny wit,

    With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain,

Must make content with his fortunes fit,

    Though the rain it raineth every day.

King Lear, Act III, scene ii, ll 74 - 77

Yesterday, 23 April, is the date traditionally assumed to be Shakespeare's birthday, but as he was not of an age but for all time, I figure it's OK to slip this form of commemoration to the day after.

The first & longer song above is the final moment of Twelfth Night. The action of the play has already concluded with Duke Orsino's speech tying up the various plot strands: go placate Malvolio, as we need information from him about the sea captain; his beloved Olivia will now be his sister, & he plans to stay on at her place until everything is settled; he will still refer to Viola by her male pseudonym, Cesario, until she's back in women's garb, when she will be "Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen" – the same fancy (imagination) he indulged in his celebrated opening lines of the play, "If music be the food of love, play on, / Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken, and so die". Guided by the whims of his fancy, Orsino's love for Viola seems unlikely to be as strong or as long-lasting as hers for him (a supposition foreshadowed & strengthened by their debate in Act II, scene iv). It's part of the underlying melancholy of this funny & sad play. (Most productions I've seen play up the farce at the expense of the poetry & pensiveness, which is too bad.)

This song continues the overcast mood of the play (very overcast, with all the wind & the rain). It is delivered by the fool Feste, who has sung other mournful & lovely songs for us, along with some drunken rounds. He wanders between households, disappearing & reappearing without excuse (his first appearance in the play, in Act I scene v, begins with the maid Maria reprimanding him for being gone without leave). Though involved in the action, particularly the plot against Malvolio, he stands a bit outside of it all. And in his final song, he sounds a bit outside his usual character; here he is not a witty jester but an ordinary, very ordinary, man, beaten down by life in general. In the final stanza, he abandons all pretense of being anything but a working actor, packing up his stage props & hoping you've found the show worth your time.

The song progresses through the stages of a man's life (very specifically a man's), somewhat in the manner of Jacques's famous, & more elaborately theatrical & poetical, Seven Ages of Man speech in As You Like It, Act II, scene vii. It begins with the singer as "a little tiny boy", surrounded by foolish things & trifles. But the second & fourth lines of this stanza, & each stanza to follow until a variant in the last line of the last stanza, cast a gloomier mood over the lyrics: after the traditional nonsense refrain of "hey, ho", we immediately get "the wind and the rain". Is the singer shrugging off the bad weather? defying it with a cheerful hey ho? merely noting its inevitability? Whatever it is, the wind & the rain are his constant companions through life. No golden afternoons here!

In the second stanza, the singer is now a man, & aware of the duplicity & cheating rampant among his kind: he shuts the gates against them. Then he marries, unhappily (alas!), though we don't hear his wife's side of things (personally I imagine her as sister to Chaucer's Wife of Bath, standing up for herself against a husband who tries to dominate through the ineffective arrogance of his swaggering). Then he becomes an old man (a physical diminution which seems to lie behind the more vivid metaphor of his coming "unto his beds"); he drinks too much, & hangs out with drunkards (tosspots). A sad & ordinary life, sad in its ordinariness, ordinary in its sadness. He still repeats his hey ho (philosophical acceptance? on-going resistance? merely the mental habit of a lifetime, carried into alcoholic elder years?) in the face of the constant wind & rain. Presumably some sunshine would be a  good thing, but he's beyond lamenting its absence, or wishing for its presence. (I at least find some beauty in the drama of the wind & rain; I keep picturing something like Hiroshige's Driving Rain at Shono).

The phrasing of the song, its persistent refrains, & its emblematic view of life make it sound like an old ballad, some sort of summation of folk wisdom. It's a beautiful & amusing song (the guy can't catch a break), but also resigned & even hopeless (because, again, the guy can't catch a break). The first line of the final stanza, A great while ago the world begun, moves us beyond the individual singer into a world-view, but one that does not contradict our singer's damp & chilly experience. That's all one, he shrugs, resigning himself to . . . fate? destiny? the universe? God? the general hardness of living? The simplifications of this sunless life lend it a ruefully comic aspect.

And as we all know, there is a very fine & blurry line between comedy & tragedy. This song must have been fairly popular, as it received a bit of a sequel in King Lear. Again, it is sung by a licensed jester, the enigmatic & satirical Fool, who comments on action that he is mostly apart from. He loyally follows Lear out into the literal wind & rain of the storm on the heath, which is where he sings his stanza. (Shortly after this song, the Fool makes his odd reference to a prophecy by Merlin, who will live after his (the Fool's) time: does this strange unearthly figure have some sort of second sight?)

But there are some interesting shifts from the Twelfth Night song to the lagniappe in King Lear: for one thing, we no longer have the impression that the singer is speaking of himself, & of himself as a sort of Everyman; here the first line singles out He that has and a little tiny wit: we don't know if the Fool means himself, Lear, or someone else, but the line does seem to make a distinction between those with "a little tiny wit" & others – he's commenting, to some extent, on the arbitrary divisions of fate (or destiny, the universe, chance, God. . . ). As in Twelfth Night's "a little tiny boy", we get the intensifier of a redundant "little tiny", but here it refers to insight & intelligence, not just to the general state of being a small boy. Such a one must make content with his fortunes fit (that is, be satisfied with the hard fortune that suits his level of wit/intelligence) though the rain it raineth every day. Though is an important switch there; in the Twelfth Night song, For the rain it raineth every day states a general truth; switching for (because) to though (that is, despite the fact that for you it raineth every day – it doesn't do so for all people, as for implies) makes it a more peculiar & individual fate. The rain is part of the hard fortune you must deal with, possibly through your own fault (that is, the fault of your "little tiny wit" & the errors it has led you into). In Twelfth Night, there is some human solidarity in the universal wind & rain; in King Lear, it becomes part of the inexplicable & arbitrary cruelties that fall on some but not on others possibly more deserving of punishment.

The reappearance of the comedy's song in the tragedy is an interesting link between what are probably my two favorite plays by Shakespeare. I used the Signet Classic editions (general editor Sylan Barnet), though of course there are many editions of both plays available.

Museum Monday 2024/17

 

Faith Ringgold, 8 October 8 1930 – 12 April 2024

detail of Listen to the Trees: The American Collection #11, seen at the de Young Museum's 2022 retrospective, Faith Ringgold: American People

Friday Photo 2024/16

 

The Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco

Poem of the Week 2024/16

To the River North Esk

In museful mood, how frequent here I stray

When summer smiles illume the lovely scene!

Sweet river! on thy margin, soft and green,

I turn, and oft retrace my winding way;

And often on thy changeful surface gaze,

Where the smooth stream reflects an azure sky,

Red rock, green moss, and shrubs of darker dye, –

Or gayly gleams with bright meridian rays.

Here, scarce a zephyr curves the glassy plain,

And scarce a murmur meets the listening ear:

There, white foam swells the wave, and still we hear

The rushing waters tumbling down amain,

Till, softening in their course, the noiseless tide

Within the enchanting mirror gently glide.

– Mary Edgar

The River North Esk, celebrated in this early nineteenth-century sonnet, can be found flowing in Angus & Aberdeenshire in Scotland. Edgar celebrates one of the beauties of her native land with a combination of the formal & elevated elegance of eighteenth century verse (museful, illume, bright meridian rays & curving zephyrs, amain) with the Romantic movement's fascination with the spiritual riches to be found by gazing, in solitude, upon a natural landscape. Museful in the first line means meditative & pensive, but also evokes the Muses, those classical inspirers of the arts, including poetry. The author is clearly in a "poetic" mood; she comes to the river without utilitarian purpose, in a spirit of admiration. She strays there, she retraces her wandering way . . . wandering, usually alone, is a great Romantic preoccupation. In the days before photography, as the rugged Scottish landscape was taking hold in the imagination of Romantic Europe, the poet guides her readers to see the beauties she sees, in quite a detailed & directed way. She starts with the river banks, covered with lush soft green grass, then moves to the surface of the river. It seems a placid stream, & the poet recurs to its reflective qualities: it reflects the sky, the vivid red rocks & green moss; it is a "glassy plain", unruffled by the breezes; she ultimately fulfills the comparisons by naming the river an enchanting mirror. The stillness of the water is echoed in the stillness of the air, where scarce a murmur meets the attentive wanderer. Then she brings us to some sort of cascade or waterfall, where the waters foam & rush & tumble down with force, until, in the final, summary & cumulative, couplet, the splashing & crashing waters subside into a once-again noiseless tide, gently gliding into the mirror of the river, reflecting back to poet & reader the enchantment & relief that Nature affords her devotees.

I took this poem from the Oxford World's Classics anthology Scottish Poetry, 1730-1830, edited by Daniel Cook.

Another Opening, Another Show: May 2024

 

(one of the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Rooms at SFMOMA, closing this month)

Posting this earlier than usual, because why not. This seems like a fairly light month, but June looks as if it will be quite loaded up.

Theatrical

San Francisco Playhouse presents Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, directed by Jeffrey Lo, from 2 May to 15 June.

Berkeley Rep presents Galileo, which is not Brecht's play but a world-premiere rock musical about the silenced scientist with book by Danny Strong, music & lyrics by Michael Weiner & Zoe Sarnak, & choreography by David Neumann, directed by Michael Mayer, & that's at the Roda Theater from 5 May to 16 June.

At New Conservatory Theater Center, Jonathan Larson's rock musical Tick, Tick... Boom! runs from 10 May to 9 June, & their high school performance ensemble presents The Giver, adapted by Eric Coble from the book by Lois Lowry, directed by Stephanie Temple, from 26 April to 5 May.

The African-American Shakespeare Company gives us The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Giulio Cesare Perrone & L. Peter Callender, from 11 to 26 May at the Marines’ Memorial Theater.

The Lamplighters present The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the Rupert Holmes musical based on Dickens's final & uncompleted novel, on 4 - 5 May at the Douglas Morrison Theater in Hayward, & on 11 - 12 & 17 - 19 May at the Presidio Theater Performing Arts Center in San Francisco; this version is described as a "hilarious whodunit", which the novel emphatically is not (hilarious, that is; it is indeed a mystery, permanently unsolvable), so this adaptation is probably pretty loose; it's done in Edwardian Music Hall style & the audience gets to choose the murderer.

Shotgun Players presents Best Available, a new play by Jonathan Spector, directed by Jon Tracy, about a theater company's search for a new artistic director, & that's at the Ashby Stage from 18 May to 16 June.

Theater Rhinoceros presents All's Well That Ends Well from 24 May to 2 June, adapted & directed by John Fisher; as this is billed as both "by William Shakespeare" & "a world premiere", I think the emphasis is on the adapted.

The Berkeley Playhouse presents Head Over Heels, the unlikely musical mash-up of the Go-Go's & Sir Philip Sidney, directed by Mel Martinez, from 24 May to 30 June.

The much-praised National Theatre & Neal Street Productions presentation of The Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini, adapted by Ben Power & directed by Sam Mendes, tracing the founding, rise, & collapse of finance company Lehman Brothers, comes to ACT's Toni Rembe Theater from 25 May to 23 June. I have mixed feelings about trigger warnings, but ACT's site cautions us that "This production includes gendered language and references to s**cide and abuse" – "s**cide"? Seeing the "ui" in the word would push someone over the edge, but it's OK with the prophylactic *s inserted? Really?

Theater Lunatico presents The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson, directed by Lauri Smith, about playwright Olympe de Gouges trying to make" art out of chaos" during the Reign of Terror "by welcoming three influential women of the French Revolution into her study"; it's a "meta-theatrical screwball comedy" & runs at La Val's Subterranean Theatre in Berkeley from 25 May to 9 June.

Talking

Cal Performances presents an Evening with David Sedaris at Zellerbach Hall on 5 May.

Retired Justice Stephen Breyer will discuss his new book, Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism, with Sarah Isgur for City Arts & Lectures on 22 May.

Writer & filmmaker Miranda July will appear in conversation with Anna Sale for City Arts & Lectures on 23 May.

Operatic

On 18 May at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, the Wagner Society of Northern California will present West Edge Opera Music Director Jonathan Khuner discussing their upcoming revival of Legend of the Ring.

Music of Remembrance presents the world premiere of Before It All Goes Dark (music by Jake Heggie, libretto by Gene Scheer), about a Vietnam veteran who discovers he is heir to an art collection stolen by the Nazis, on 22 May at the Presidio Theater.

Choral

The Golden Gate Men's Chorus will join with the Peninsula Women's Chorus to perform Puccini's Messa di Gloria & other choral works on 4 May at Mission Santa Clara & on 5 May at Mission Dolores Basilica in San Francisco.

Sacred & Profane gives us Songs for Solace & Restoration, a program featuring works by Ysäye Barnwell, Eric Whitacre, Shawn Kirchner, Zanaida Robles, Morten Lauridsen, Dale Trumbore, & Dave Malloy, & that's 11 May at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley & 12 May at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco.

Guest conductor Ash Walker leads Chora Nova in music for chorus & organ (featuring organist John Wilson) by Pavel Chesnokov, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Louis Vierne, Brahms, Morten Lauridsen, & Gilbert & Sullivan, at First Congregational in Berkeley on 25 May.

On 30 May at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland, the San Francisco Girls Chorus School will perform their spring concert, which includes the world premiere of a commission by 2023-2024 Composer-in-Residence Sahba Aminikia.

Vocalists

Lieder Alive! closes its season on 5 May at Noe Valley Ministries, with mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich, cellist Jennifer Culp, & pianist Jeffrey LaDeur performing works by Schubert, Borodin, Schumann, Brahms, Franck, Berlioz, Amy Beach, Rachmaninoff, Greene. & Bernstein.

Holly Near: The Almost 75 Birthday Concert will be held at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on 18 May.

Soprano Jill Morgan Brenner performs with pianist Paul Dab at Old First Concerts on 31 May; the program has not yet been announced.

Orchestral

Daniel Hope & the New Century Chamber Orchestra will be joined by pianist Awadagin Pratt for Jessie Montgomery's Rounds, for piano and string orchestra, David Diamond's Rounds, for strings, Florence Price's Adoration for violin and strings (arranged by Paul Bateman), & Leonard Bernstein's Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium), on 2 May at First Congregational in Berkeley, 3 May at the Green Music Center at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, & 4 May at the Presidio Theater in San Francisco.

David Milnes leads the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in Reflets de l’ombre by Carmine Cella, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, & Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony on 3 & 4 May at Hertz Hall on the Berkeley campus.

Donato Cabrera leads the California Symphony in the world premiere of Mishwar (A Trip) by resident composer Saad Haddad, along with Clara Schumann's only surviving Piano Concerto (with soloist Robert Thies), & the Brahms 1, on 4 - 5 May at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek.

Marta Gardolińska leads the San Francisco Symphony in Overture by Grażyna Bacewicz, the Elgar Cello Concerto (with soloist Pablo Ferrández), & the Mendelssohn 3, the Scottish, on 10 & 12 May.

Omid Zoufonoun leads the Oakland Symphony Youth Orchestra in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (with soloist Ben Chen), Concertstück by Gabriel Pierné (with harp soloist Viviana Alfaro), & the Tchaikovsky 5, on 12 May at the San Leandro Performing Arts Center.

Ryan Bancroft leads the San Francisco Symphony in the American premiere of a Symphony commission, Alaraph ‘Ritus des Herzschlags’ by Unsuk Chin, the Violin Concerto #5 by Henri Vieuxtemps (with soloist Joshua Bell), Earth by Kevin Puts, & La Mer by Debussy, on 16 - 18 May.

Kyle J Dickson leads the Oakland Symphony in Aaron Copland's Canticle of Freedom, Wynton Marsalis's Violin Concerto (with soloist Kelly Hall-Tompkins), & the Beethoven 5, at the Paramount Theater on 17 May.

On 18 May at the Grand Theater in the Mission, the San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Freedom Band will perform music from animated films, anime, & video games, including selections from Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, Aladdin, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and others (including some sing-along material).

Daniel Stewart will lead the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra in the Mahler 5 at Davies Hall on 19 May.

On 25 May at Herbst Theater, Jessica Bejarano will lead the San Francisco Philharmonic in Glinka's Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila, Dvořák's Romanze for Violin (with soloist Thomas Yee), Saint-Saëns's Phaeton, & the Mendelssohn 3, the Scottish.

Urs Leonhardt Steiner leads the Golden Gate Symphony Orchestra & Chorus in a performance celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Beethoven 9th on 26 May at Herbst Theater in San Francisco.

Chamber Music

The Ives Collective performs Germaine Tailleferre's Quatuor, Emilie Mayer's Piano Quartet in G major, & Mozart's String Quintet in C major at Old First Concerts on 5 May.

Berkeley Chamber Performances presents the Telegraph Quartet performing Fanny Mendelssohn's String Quartet, Kenji Bunch's String Quartet #3, & the Dvořák String Quartet #14 at the Berkeley City Club on 7 May.

Chamber Music San Francisco presents the Viano Quartet at Herbst Theater on 7 May, performing Haydn's Quartet in D Major, Opus 64 #5, Smetana's Quartet in E minor: From My Life, & Beethoven's Quartet in E minor, Opus 59 #2.

On 24 May at 405 Shrader in San Francisco, the Friction Quartet will perform Janáček's String Quartet #2: Intimate Letters, along with other pieces to be announced.

On 25 May at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley campus, there will be a 40th anniversary celebration of the Crowden School, featuring faculty, alumni, & current students; the program includes violinists David McCarroll & Nora Chastain leading a work commissioned for celebration from Samuel Adams, the Catalyst Quartet performing the Mendelssohn Octet, a cello ensemble led by Bonnie Hampton, the Friction Quartet performing Carrot Revolution by Gabriella Smith, Audrey Vardanega performing pieces by Piazzolla, a composition to be announced from school benefactor Gordon Getty, the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams, & a John Adams Young Composers Program student premiere, performed by The Crowden School Lower School Orchestra.

A chamber ensemble of San Francisco Symphony musicians will perform pieces by Durwynne Hsieh, Krzysztof Penderecki, Edgar Meyer, & Tchaikovsky in Davies Hall on 26 May.

Instrumental

Jonathan Biss completes his Echoes of Schubert series for San Francisco Performances on 2 May at Herbst Theater, where he will perform the Impromptu in B flat Major, #3 & the Sonata in B flat Major, paired with a new work by Tyshawn Sorey.

The San Francisco Symphony presents a solo recital by pianist Evgeny Kissin in Davies Hall on 7 May, when he will play Beethoven's Piano Sonata #27 in E minor, the Nocturne in F-sharp minor & the Fantaisie in F minor by Chopin, Four Ballades by Brahms, & the Piano Sonata #2 in D minor by Prokofiev.

Chamber Music San Francisco presents violinist Mayuko Kamio with pianist Noreen Polera at Herbst Theater on 12 May, performing works by Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Elgar, Dvořák, Ponce, Dinicu, Monti, Tchaikovsky, Kreisler, & Rachmaninoff.

Chamber Music San Francisco presents pianist Bruce Liu at Herbst Theater on 17 May, performing Haydn's Sonata in B minor, Chopin's Sonata #2, Nikolai Kapustin's Variations, Opus 41, Rameau's Six Pieces, & Prokofiev's Sonata #7.

Harpist Kaitlin Miller performs at Old First Concerts on 19 May; the program has not yet been announced.

Alasdair Fraser and the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers will perform traditional tunes at Freight & Salvage on 19 May.

Early / Baroque Music

Pianist Víkingur Ólafsson piano plays Bach's Goldberg Variations in Zellerbach Hall for Cal Performances on 4 May.

The Cantata Collective continues its traversal of Bach's cantatas with its 26 May performance at Saint Mary Magdalen's in Berkeley of Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh allzeit, BWV 111 & Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, BWV 135, featuring soloists Michele Kennedy (soprano), Heidi Waterman (alto), Kyle Stegall (tenor), & Harrison Hintzsche (bass).

Modern / Contemporary Music

Gabriel Kahane returns to Herbst Theater & San Francisco Performances on 3 May, after his PIVOT Festival appearances earlier this year (my write-up is here); this time he is joined by violinist Pekka Kuusisto, & the program has not been released yet but will contain "the world premiere of a collaboratively written song cycle exploring the joys and griefs of life in the 21st century, around which Kuusisto and Kahane have built an eclectic program ranging from Bach and Nico Muhly to Scandinavian folk music and songs from Kahane’s catalog".

On 3 May at Old First Concerts, Duo HaLo (Andrew Harrison, saxophone & Jason Lo, piano) will play Imaginary Folksongs for Saxophone and Piano, featuring Stephen Lias's Imaginary Folksongs, Florence Price's Three Negro Spirituals (arranged by Harrison), Lori Laitman's Journey, Ryota Ishikawa's Rhapsody on Japanese Folksongs, & Jennifer Jolley's Lilac Tears.

On 10 May at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Martin West will lead the SFCM Orchestra (along with members of the SF Ballet Orchestra) in the Conservatory's Concerto Winner's Concert, featuring Leo Brouwer's Guitar Concerto #4, Concerto de Toronto, with soloist Juan Samaca (2022 Guitar Concerto Competition Winner) & Jeremy Beck's Death of a Little Girl with Doves, with soloist soprano Rayna Campbell (2023 Voice Concerto Competition Winner).

On 16 May at the Berkeley Piano Club on Haste Street, the Friction Quartet will perform Dan Becker's Vanishing Point, Jörg Widmann's String  Quartet #3: Jagdquartett, Caroline Shaw's Three Essays for String Quartet, Paweł Malinowski's I <3 Franz, & Toru Takemitsu's A Way A Lone (I assume this title is a Finnegans Wake reference).

Violinist Sarah Saviet plays Xenakis’ Miika, a new work by herself, & two recent works by Lisa Streich & Tim McCormack at the Center for New Music on 17 May.

At the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on 18 May, composer Jeff Gao will present the world premieres of his Sonata for Alto Saxophone & Piano & his Lenny's Defiance, along with Elinor Armer's Romantic Duo, the Brahms Clarinet Sonata #2, & Paganini's Moto Perpetuo (the concert will feature Wenbo Yin on alto saxophone & Jenny Ma on piano).

The Alchemist Quintet plays at the California Jazz Conservatory on 18 May.

On 19 May at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Valérie Sainte-Agathe leads the San Francisco Girls Chorus Premier Ensemble in a concert with special guest percussionist Haruka Fujii, featuring new music, including a commissioned work from Fujii.

On 20 May at Old First Concerts, Earplay gives us the world premiere of a new work for sextet & voice by Erin Gee (commissioned for Earplay), along with Sami Seif's Syriac Fugato for violin and viola, George Walker's Perimeters for clarinet and piano, & a new work by Byron Au Yong for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano

On 30 May at the Brava Theater, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players joins with Volti to present the Bay Area premiere of Elliott Carter's Asko Concerto, the world premiere of Richard Festinger's Worlds Apart, & a set of new music for Chamber Choir; the program will feature soprano soloist Winnie Nieh & is preceded by one of SFCMP's How Music Is Made discussions, this time with Festinger.

Dance

The San Francisco Ballet presents Swan Lake from 30 April to 5 May.

The Oakland Ballet presents Lustig Live! at Laney College on 3 - 4 May, featuring the world premiere of Faun, inspired by the life of Nijinsky, with music performed by flutist Arturo Rodriguez & pianist Hadley McCarroll, as well as the Oakland Ballet premieres of Uncertain Steps, with William Skeen on Baroque Cello, & Dialogues, with musical performances by soprano Shawnette Sulker & pianist Hadley McCarroll, & Heartbreak Hotel, with Hank Maninger on vocals & guitar & Leor Beary on vocals and drums.

Smuin Ballet presents Dance Series 2, featuring the world premiere of Tupelo Tornado by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Broken Open by Amy Seiwert (composer/cellist Julia Kent will play live 3 - 5 May), Untwine  by Brennan Wall, & Starshadows by Michael Smuin, from 3 - 12 May at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco.

Art Means Painting

SFMOMA opens The Art of Noise on 4 May & it runs through 18 August; this looks like another attempt to cash in on boomer-rock nostalgia, & is part of the museum's on-going disregard of any modern music that isn't pop- or rock-based, but, you know, maybe I'm wrong. (I eagerly await their programming celebrating the Schoenberg sesquicentennial.) Also, 28 May is your last day to experience the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Rooms; they are quite enjoyable, but it's a much lighter experience than I expected; I know some who have been disappointed, but in my view "fun" & "enjoyable", even on a strictly time-limited basis (2 minutes in each room), is not to be dismissed lightly.

American Beauty: The Osher Collection of American Art, showcasing American art from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, opens at the de Young on 18 May & runs through 20 October.

Cinematic

On 1 May at Davies Hall, Constantine Kitsopoulos leads the San Francisco Symphony as they play along with The Wizard of Oz; I'm normally pretty dubious about these Symphonic replacements of a film's existing soundtrack (silent films are a different matter), but . . . it's the great & powerful Wizard of Oz.

What is described as the Final Cut of Coppola's Apocalypse Now, an adaptation of Heart of Darkness to the jungles of Vietnam, will screen at the Roxie on 19 May.

Museum Monday 2024/16

 

Saint Ursula, with some of her 11,000 virgin companions: a detail of Triptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints, now at the Art Institute of Chicago

SF Conservatory of Music: Handel's Serse

Last year the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Historical Performance Department gave us Handel's Flavio (my post is here), a rarity; this year it gave us his Serse, one of his more popular operas. Once again the performances were led by Corey Jamason from the harpsichord, leading the Conservatory's Baroque Ensemble. I heard the Saturday cast; I would have gone back for the Sunday afternoon cast but I had a conflict.

The Saturday performance was so enjoyable that I regretted not being able to go back & experience the production again through the prism of different performers. Once again, the staging is fairly minimal; the singers wear appropriate costumes & act out the roles in front of the orchestra, but the set is restricted to some large boxes that are useful for hiding behind, putting disguises in, & so forth. A witty touch in the costuming was that two lovers who will clearly end up together, Arsamene & Romilda, were both wearing purple; he was in a suit & she in a gown. So they were visually linked from the beginning, though the shades did not match exactly, reflecting the turbulent vacillations of their fancies.

The titular monarch, Serse (Xerxes), is the unstable core of a whirligig of romance. The opera famously opens with what used to be known as "Handel's Largo", the dulcet aria Ombra mai fu, in which the Emperor expresses his love for . . . a tree. It's apparently a very attractive tree. I think we can all sympathize, as spring is now bringing the fresh green leaves out on the twining branches. Most of the plot revolves around the Emperor's arbitrary decision to love or not to love, & the implicit threat to others in his power.

The other lovers are not really more stable, though less dangerous because less powerful. Serse's brother Arsamene is in love with Romilda, whom Serse decides he must have for his own (he thinks his brother's loves are as easily transplanted as his); Romilda is in love with Arsamene, but the two of them are subject to intense fits of jealousy, leading to much musical sniping. Romilda's sister Atalanta is in love with Arsamene, & tries to sabotage her sister's relationship with him whenever possible. There's also Amastre, a neighboring princess in love & promised to Serse, who arrives disguised rather dashingly as a man; Elviro, Arsamene's comic servant, & Ariodate, the well-meaning father of Romilda & Atalanta, round out the cast of characters. The sniping, the jealousy, the comical confusions about love, the underlying threat from an arbitrary power . . . despite baroque opera's reputation for rarefied silliness, the actions & emotional affects here strike me as much more life-like than the strained melodramas of the so-called "verismo" school of opera.

The whole cast was very strong. The title role was performed by mezzo-soprano Jordan McCready, with the confident air (& even physical aggression – s/he more or less playfully pushed people around physically as well as emotionally) of a supreme ruler. The exquisite lovers Arsamene & Romilda were performed by, respectively, countertenor Kyle Tingzon & soprano Camryn Finn. The conniving sister Atalanta was soprano Catherine Duncan. Mezzo-soprano Cambria Metzinger, looking stylish in her man's disguise of black leather boots & a hat with a large feather (quite jaunty for a despairing lover!) was the intense Amastre. Bass-baritone Joseph Calzada was quite funny as the servant Elviro, who would rather go off somewhere with a bottle of wine, & baritone Aaron Hong was the suavely blundering (to good effect) Ariodate. The orchestra gave lively shape to the music.

It's kind of amazing that so much work went into what was essentially a one-off performance (for the singers; the orchestra was of course the same for both performances). It's even more amazing that such a high level of performance was given to the public for free (as are many programs at the Conservatory): all you had to do to get a ticket was make a reservation. Kudos to the Conservatory for serving Handel & the public (& its students) so well.

Friday Photo 2024/15

 

eat Carnation mush, San Francisco, April 2024

Poem of the Week 2024/15

They Mock Me for Planting Trees at My Age

Seventy, and still planting trees. . . 

Don't laugh at me, my friends.

Of course I know I'm going to die.

I also know I'm not dead yet.

– Yuan Mei, translated by JP Seaton

This pellucid poem doesn't really call for much commentary, I think, as it elegantly sums up, in just four lines, a situation, a conventional social reaction, & the narrator's defiant wisdom, part of the great tradition of carpe diem poetry. So here's a variant translation of the same poem:

If at seventy I still plant trees,

Lookers-on, do not laugh at my folly.

It is true of course that no one lives forever;

But nothing is gained by knowing so in advance.

– Yuan Mei, translated by Arthur Waley

Unfortunately in my ignorance of Mandarin, I can't comment on how closely either version hews to the eighteenth-century original. The gist of both translations is the same, but with some differing nuances: In the Seaton, the poet addresses his friends, in the Waley, the more general lookers-on (who may or may not be well-intentioned in their views of the old man, while friends, though perhaps lacking in understanding of why he is planting trees he is unlikely to see grow to maturity, are presumably basically accepting in their views of him & his actions). In the third line of the Seaton, the knowledge of looming mortality is much more personal: Of course I know I'm going to die. In the Waley, It is true of course that no one lives forever is much more indirect – the abrupt honesty of die vs the indirect truth that no one lives forever, the straightforwardness of Of course I know against the more genially philosophical proposition that It is true of course, the first-person I against the third-person no one. You get the same contrast in the two treatments of the final line: the Seaton more personal & defiant, the Waley more abstract & stoic. I have no preference between the two approaches; a single poem in Mandarin has fructified into two convincing versions in English.

The Seaton translation is from I Don't Bow to Buddhas: Selected Poems of Yuan Mei, translated from the Chinese & with an introduction by J P Seaton. In his introduction, Seaton recommends Waley's biography Yuan Mei: Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet, which is where I got the Waley translation.

Museum Monday 2024/15

 

at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, with David Brenner's living wall on the right in the background, & two sculptures by Alexander Calder: to the right, part of Big Crinkly, & on the left, the Intermediate maquette for Trois disques (Three Discs)

Friday Photo 2024/14

 

a springtime afternoon in Berkeley California

Poem of the Week 2024/14

A Light exists in Spring

Not present on the Year

At any other period –

When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad

On Solitary Fields

That Science cannot overtake

But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,

It shows the furthest Tree

Upon the furthest Slope you know

It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step

Or Noons report away

Without the Formula of sound

It passes and we stay –

A quality of loss

Affecting our Content

As Trade had suddenly encroached

Upon a Sacrament.

– Emily Dickinson

Here we begin with light, a certain light visible only for a liver of the year, in early Spring. It would be the result of atmospheric conditions & so forth, but is treated as a thing-in-itself, not as a result of natural processes: it is described as being present on the Year, as if it were a physical object placed over another object. The light becomes a Color (Dickinson capitalizes both Light & Color, emphasizing them as entities, though of course they are disembodied perceptions of our eyes). Like the Light that is on the Year, the Color stands abroad, as if it is also a separate, physical object rather than an effect of the light (a perceptual manifestation of a natural phenomenon that exists only on the level of photons).

It stands on Solitary Fields – perhaps solitary rather than empty, to give a human, emotional dimension to the separation & isolation of the fields. Presumably there are no other people in evidence, except for the poet, observing the Light & its resultant Color. The second stanza ends with an emphasis on the human observer, & the effects of the light/color are taken as not individual but general: this is what Human Nature feels, looking at this color, not what one particular individual witnesses. Science cannot overtake the Color, we are told: is it too evanescent to be analyzed as part of the spectrum of light? too dependent on a combination of other factors (the time of year, the atmosphere) to be reduced to a standard formula? Dickinson will develop this thought further at the end of the poem.

The Light/Color continues to be treated as an entity, given an almost physical shape in the poet's vision, existing as a separate part in the landscape. Not only a physical-seeming entity, but one with consciousness: it waits up on the Lawn. (Lawn suggests human habitation in a way that fields does not; people do not actually appear in this poem, but their effects are palpable, as is the Light/Color they're interacting with.) It shows us a Tree on a Slope – both further out than perhaps we would normally look. The Light draws us there, manifesting the Tree & the Slope as objects we are drawn to. The Light/Color almost speaks to you; here the poet reinforces the suggestion that these are not her individual reactions, but ones that any observer would have. Yet the Light/Color, though presented in almost human terms – as something that can speak directly to us – doesn't quite reach that human-like form; it almost speaks, we are on the verge of being told something, but it eludes us, slipping away with distance & time.

Distance & time are made explicit in the next stanza, with Horizons stepping away & Noons reporting away. Again, conceptual entities – the horizon, noontime – are personified as taking physical action: the Horizons step, the Noons report. Stepping, reporting: business-like & efficient! Formula in the third line of the stanza also carries business-like, scientific overtones: sound is a formula, a product of certain scientific/mathematic principles. This is another way for Dickinson to make her point about the Light/Color almost speaking: it exists, it has something to say, but it passes without saying it in words we can understand.

But perhaps the meaning lies not in sentences that can be formulated with words, but in the quality of loss the poet mentions at the beginning of the last stanza: that evanescent, ineffable feeling that strikes us deep inside, "Affecting our Content" as the poet says: Content here refers primarily, I think, to happiness & satisfaction – contentment – but there's also the implication of our "contents", that is, the miscellaneous things we contain. That's the deep level of effect this passing experience has.

The poem closes with a vivid simile: As Trade had suddenly encroached / Upon a Sacrament. Trade brings up the American mercantile world of buying & selling; it connects with the other scientific/business-like terms to oppose one world – the burgeoning world of American capitalism, based on engineering, mathematics, getting & spending – with the solemn world of the Sacraments. For a nineteenth-century New England poet like Dickinson, the memory of the Puritan colonists would never be far away, even as it was being supplanted by a materialistic, profit-driven society. The fleeting Light/Color leaves us behind, with a sense of loss, as solitary as the fields or the single Tree out on a far slope, divided between an inner sense of a solemn manifestation of the Creator/Redeemer – a Sacrament – which is, however, intruded upon by the bustling new world of capitalism, using, exploiting, & changing Nature to spin the wheels of trade.

This poem strikes me as a spring-time equivalent of Dickinson's wintry There's a certain Slant of light: both poems deal with the interior, psychological & spiritual, effects of light upon a landscape.

This is #812 in Thomas H Johnson's edition of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.

Museum Monday 2024/14

 

detail of Lamentation Over the Dead Christ by Giovanni della Robbia, now at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston