If you have been reading along, you probably have noticed that the postings have been a bit irregular over the last couple weeks. Part of this has been due to the flu that I’ve been surviving, barely, and part of this has been due to the stresses that occur upstairs at Powell during this time of year.
Not only are we active in doing all the things that need to be done to get concerts promoted and musicians on stage and guest artists fed and supplied decaf coffee (that’s what Lynn Harrell drank, part of the centered nature he exudes, perhaps) but we’re also heavily involved in next season, in terms of putting together the 07/08 season brochure. The present gets lost in this, nearly, overwhelming effort. I haven’t been able to keep tabs with goings-on onstage or backstage, and have only been hearing the music through the office speaker. The general tenor of the place, I’ve noticed, at this time of year is crabby. Everybody’s sick of the cold, everybody’s overworked, everybody’s sick or getting over being sick or trying to avoid being sick. And now it’s February, the second-cruelest month.
But let me tell you about some people I’ve been observing at a tangent, who are working very hard and making really fascinating music as they explore very complicated pieces. The quartet that will be playing George Crumb’s Black Angels at the Pulitzer (Peter Otto and Eva Kozma, violins; Morris Jacob, viola; Bjorn Ranheim, cello) have been at it strenuously over the last couple weeks, both in the Green Room and on stage and I’m sure in their individual private practice zones. This is wickedly complex music, in terms of rhythm, in terms of creating the effects of sound, in terms of finding the dramatic heart of the matter. Heck, the score is hard to read, something like trying to make sense out of the design of the internal workings of your computer.
And today, the quartet to play Steve Reich’s Different Trains, on the same program at the Pulitzer February 14 & 15, (Joo Kim and Asako Kuboki, violins; Bryan Florence, viola; David Kim, cello) were at work on stage playing to the different recorded sounds that are part of that haunting work.
And think, then they all have Berlioz and Mahler to prepare as well. Glamorous life, indeed. With crabbiness.
