Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon

The weekend began Friday afternoon at Symphony Center for a matinee performance, Pierre Boulez leading the Chicago Symphony as part of the celebrations for his 85th birthday. I’d never seen the great man conduct before and was struck with his economy of motion: no over-emoting for him. Whatever the style, it worked: the orchestra played as well as I have heard it. The program opened with the latest incarnation of Boulez’ own Livre pour cordes, a particularly warm instance of serialism. They moved on from there to take on the tricky twists and turns of Bartok’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra, played brilliantly by Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich as the keyboard soloists. It’s a work in which Bartok explores the percussive nature of the piano, setting the keyboards in complex dialogues with drums, xylophones, and other struck instruments. The program closed with a thrilling rendition of Stravinsky’s The Firebird played in the full ballet version. John von Rhein, the Chicago Tribune’s classical music critic, was similarly enthusiastic in his review of the Thursday evening performance.

In the meanwhile, on the other side of the world, yokozuna Asashoryu, the bad boy from Mongolia, took charge of the New Year Sumo tournament. He wrapped up the title on Day 14. It was his 25th career championship, putting him in third place in the record book. The victory came in the final tournament for Uchidate Makiko, Asashoryu’s long-time nemesis on the Yokozuna Deliberation Council, making it all the more satisfying. Moreover, Asashoryu gave us yet another spectacular example of his trademark misbehavior during the tournament, coming close to getting himself arrested in a drunken brawl late at night after Day 6. The tournament, as expected, also saw the retirement of the great ozeki Chiyotaikai. Yokozuna Hakuho managed to defeat Asashoryu in their direct meeting on the final day, but that victory was purely moral, as Asashoryu was simply killing time until the trophy ceremony.

Friday night ended with another classical concert: Europa Galante led by violinist Fabio Biondi at Mandel Hall. A period instruments ensemble, they opened with two lovely pieces by Telemann. Guest flutist Frank Theuns could easily be the model for a new muppet character. They closed with an edgy version of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, the schmaltz factor reduced to almost zero, reminding us in the process that a terrific piece of music lies buried beneath all the abuse that mass culture has heaped on to it. Two short encore pieces by Corelli and Gluck (the latter had the violinists plucking their way through) brought the evening to an airy close. The Chicago Classical Review website liked the performance, as the did the critic for the New York Times, who caught much of the same program last week at Carnegie Hall (where, no doubt, the acoustics were better….).

It turns out I’m not the only person who has had to make the Los Angeles vs. Chicago decision in recent years. Flutist Matheiu Dufour has switched from the Chicago Symphony to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and back again, and now there’s a bit of a kerfuffle in the press about what it all means. Check out the passionate rebuttals from readers in the comments section, too.

Who says classical music is boring? I have a ticket for one of the Chicago Symphony’s concerts next week celebrating the 85th birthday of Pierre Boulez (a man who has stirred a ruckus or two in his day, now that I think about it). I’ll keep my eyes and ears peeled for hints of sabotage and smoldering passions among the musicians….

Paying homage to music at the Church of Beethoven (LA Times).

It’s that time of year: when critics and others assemble their “best of” lists. For the first time ever, I’ve discovered my own name on one of them: the website for Public Radio International’s “The World” has included Natsume Soseki’s Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings, which I co-edited with Atsuko Ueda and Joseph Murphy, on its list of “World Books: International Reads for the Holidays.” I feel flattered, even if the author describes our book as “the nerdiest pick on my list.”

Over at the Japan Times, Mark Schilling has posted his best ten list of Japanese films from 2009. I haven’t seen a single one, alack. Meanwhile, over at the Daily Yomiuri, the erstwhile “Wm. Penn,” whose column I have been reading religiously for two decades now, gives us her picks for the best of 2009 Japanese television dramas.

Closer to home, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, picks the top rock albums of the year. Alex Ross of the New Yorker does the same for classical music recordings.

As for me, I’m just glad to be done with my grading. Now it’s time to plow ahead and try to finish that last unwritten chapter in my book on postwar popular music in Japan….

It’s been a lively weekend so far. It started with my first ever visit to Buddy Guy’s Legends downtown on Friday evening. I saw a remarkable set by Michigan guitarist/singer Larry McCray. Too often nowadays, a blues show tries to get by on showboating and on the charisma of the front man. It was refreshing to see McCray’s sharp band bring down the house relying instead on sheer talent and creativity. He’s got a terrific style that contains elements of B.B. King and the Allman Brothers (both of whom McCray has worked with in the past), and he tosses off these little atomic guitar fills between vocal lines that leave you flabbergasted, the way John Lee Hooker used to do (though McCray sounds nothing like Hooker).

McCray also possesses a wonderful voice full of gravel (again, B.B. King comes to mind). In other words, he brings the full package. I have seen the future of the blues, and I’ve just ordered my copy of his 1993 album, Delta Hurricane.

Then, yesterday afternoon, we took Sonia to see the Joffrey Ballet’s Nutcracker at the Auditorium Theater. It’s a nice holiday spectacle with amazing sets and costumes. The stage gets a little crowded during the first half, when narrative dominates. The second half, when the real dancing happens, was lovely (and the handful of crying children in matinee audience actually added to the atmosphere, I thought), though Sonia found it a bit boring. I always think the Arabian dance should be shorter and the Russian dance longer, but that’s probably a sign of my bad taste.

Now it’s back to grading for me. I hope you’re having a fine weekend, wherever you may be.

Apologies for the dearth of postings here recently. I’ve been, uhm, busy. Looking back over the past several days now, on a lovely autumn Saturday morning, I see that it was a week in which evil flared up, but in which the power of music to tame wild demons again came to the rescue.

Evil: is there any other word for a World Series championship by the New York Yankees? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I’m supposed to be happy for Matsui Hideki being named series’ MVP title in what may be his last appearance with the team. That changes nothing: a Yankees’ championship is satanic, demonic, evil. If anyone doubted that the dark forces were at work, a mere twelve hours after New York knocked off the Phillies in the decisive game, their Asian counterparts on the nether side of the veil, the Tokyo Giants, hit two home runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to come back from a 2-1 deficit and defeat the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in Game 5 of the Japan Series. These are the final days, I was sure. What more proof was required?

But music conquers all. It’s called catharsis, purification. It can handle even the Yankees. Thursday night, we went to our youngest’s eighth grade Fall Concert. She sang in the choir, which gave a lovely performance, including a terrific piece I’d not heard before, “Grumble Too Much” by Ruth Elaine Schram. The school band and school orchestra played as well. The highlight of the latter was Richard Meyer’s “Rosin Eating Zombies from Outer Space.” It’s a wonderful piece for a middle-school orchestra: watching the players grin in anticipation of what was coming next made my night. Here’s video of another middle-school ensemble playing the piece.

The next night we returned to the same venue (Mandel Hall) to witness a transcendent concert by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra with soprano Dawn Upshaw. All of the pieces performed had roots in folk musics from around the world. The evening opened with an eye-opening rendition of Gonzales Piazzola’s tango-inspired Fuga y Misterio. Upshaw then joined the ensemble for the world premiere of Alberto Iglesia In the Land of the Lemon Trees, a cycle of three songs. Upshaw was in marvelous voice for the piece, which featured striking interplay between guitar and orchestra. Iglesias came on stage at the conclusion to accept an enthusiastic ovation.

The second half of the evening was even better. Upshaw sang Osvaldo Golijov’s “Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra” like an angel, able to fill the darkness with light. The lullaby of the opening “Night of the Flying Horses,” with touches of klezmer music throughout, and Upshaw’s incredible voice on the closing piece, “How Slow the Wind,” left me with goosebumps. Then it was the orchestra’s turn to take over, with Steven Copes as the soloist for Prokofiev’s grand old (1935: the oldest work on the program) Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor. It’s one of my favorite works. The concerto dips its toes, then its foot, then its whole leg, into lively Russian folk music. Copes sawed away at his fiddle in the dramatic moments, and the orchestra played with a disciplined energy: astonishing.

And so once again light replaces darkness, music conquers noise, order tames chaos. Thanks to the ritual cleansing performed by the two concerts, no doubt, the Minnesota Twins have acquired a new shortstop, giving unexpected hope for 2010. Evil has been contained. To hell with the Yankees. Literally.

[UPDATE: John von Rhein, the Chicago Tribune's classical music critic, sings similar praises of last Friday's concert, calling Upshaw "a wonder at evoking moods and expressive nuances" and "absolutely compelling" and describing the Prokofiev as "dashing." Dashing, it certainly was. In the meanwhile, all hail Satan: in Japan, the Giants knocked off the Fighters in Game 6 of the Japan Series on Saturday night, delivering their 21st championship to the lord of darkness. All is vanity.]

The Wall Street Journal recently discovered that Tokyo is just about the best place on earth to be a jazz fan. John Kirch surveys the delights available there–the coffeeshops, the live houses, the bars– and concludes,

If jazz is America’s gift to the world, Japan is the place that knows how to unwrap it. While serious musicians and devotees fret that traditional, noncommercialized improvisation is becoming as esoteric a taste as it is in the land of its birth, jazz in all its forms still pulses through Tokyo. Sixty years after this vibrant U.S. export began to take hold, it’s piped into hotel lobbies as a marker of elegance and sophistication, blasted from dingy basement dives in unlikely neighborhoods, spun by club DJs and obsessional bar owners and hawked in innumerable specialty record shops. In Tokyo you can hear jazz of stunning, nearly offhand virtuosity played in clubs that range from among the world’s smallest to among its most expensive.

All true. Tokyo may be the best jazz city on earth, but Chicago isn’t far behind. Howard Mandel in his “Jazz Beyond Jazz” blog has anointed us America’s best jazz town.

Jazz is the lifeblood of Chicago in a way it ain’t in NYC, at least not right now. Jazz-soul-blues is Chicago’s street music. Chicago’s citizens — not just its visitors — seem to consider jazz this music their personal due. It’s what you hear at O’Hare going in and out of town.

He’s right, I think. If you want proof, just check out the amazing Hyde Park Jazz festival that will take place this coming weekend.

If a tie-breaker is needed, let me offer up this recent article from the Telegraph newspaper (UK), reaffirming the Chicago Symphony’s status as America’s best orchestra.

And did I mention the blues?

Sôtaisei Riron, Haifai shinsho 「ハイファイ新書」 (2009, Mirai). Second album by up-and-coming Japanese indies band, it reached #7 on the Oricon album charts earlier this year. Mabe Shûichi’s original compositions contain hints of jazz and fusion, especially in the off-kilter guitar work. What really makes the band stand out, though, are the whispery, girlish vocals by Yakushimaru Etsuko. The lyrics often contain clever wordplay, but aren’t especially profound. Not perfect, but certainly a band worth watching in the coming years.

“Monsieur” Kamayatsu Hirsoshi, 1939 Monsieur: Monsieur Kamayatsu 70th Anniversary Album 「ムッシュかまやつ 70thアニバーサリーアルバム」 (2009, avex). An even more recent updating of the Monsieur Kamayatsu legend, this time commemorating the great man’s 70th birthday. It features him in duets with musicians of many different generations, revisiting songs from across his long career, stretching from “Ban Ban Ban,” his 1966 hit with The Spiders in a nice punky version here with Hitoto Yô, to “Gauloise o sutta koto ga aru kai” (see below) in a duet with Micro. Other guests include fellow Spiders Sakai Masaaki and Inoue Jun, Thomas Matsumoto, The Alfee, Moriyama Ryôko, Imai Miki, and Hotei Tomoyasu, among others. There’s no point in my hoping I sound this good when I’m 70, since I didn’t sound this good when I was 18. Very nice.

“Monsieur” Kamayatsu Hiroshi, Gauloise (1994, Polystar). Terrific updating of the Monsieur Kamayatsu sound recorded in England under the production supervision of Oyamada Keigo (Cornelius), with first-rate British session musicians. Kamayatsu’s original 1974 recording of “Gauloise o sutta koto ga aru kai,” on which he was backed by Tower of Power, became an unlikely hit in British clubs in the early 1990s, prompting Oyamada to bring the man back into the recording studio.

Benjamin Britten, Serenade for Tenor, Horns and Strings; Les Illuminations; Nocturne, Ian Bostridge, Berlin Philharmoniker (2005, EMI). Nice recordings of three of Britten’s extended vocal compositions.

Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of Joseph Haydn’s death. The occasion has been noted here and there, including a nice little story on NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” but Haydn had the misfortune of being both a fellow countryman and a contemporary to an even more famous composer, in whose shadow he’s had to exist ever since. As a recent AP article notes, in Austria even in Haydn’s big commemorative year, it’s still mostly Wolfgang.

“Everything is Mozart here,” said Ibrahim Erneten, who peddles concert tickets to tourists thronging the Austrian capital’s upscale Graben pedestrian zone abutting the opera house.” The tourists don’t know about Haydn.

That was certainly the case yesterday afternoon at the Chicago Symphony’s concert. The program opened with a lovely, delicate rendition of Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 (“Surprise”) under the deft direction of Bernard Labadie. But the rest of the program was all Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat (K. 456) with Benedetto Lupo on the piano, the chaconne from the opera “Idomeneo,” and Symphony No. 39 (“Prague”). The reviewer for the Chicago Tribune liked the program as much as I did, but poor Mr. Haydn….

I’m more a fan of the twentieth-century repertoire than of the classical period. But as of late I’ve been listening a good deal to Haydn’s later London symphonies. They are, of course, wonderful, complex pieces. I remember my first-grade teacher, the amazing Mrs. Morgan at Lily Lake Elementary in Stillwater, Minnesota, playing the “Surprise” symphony for us way back in 1967, explaining to her pupils the joke in the second movement. (I also remember her lecturing us on symphony hall etiquette and our incredulous reaction when she insisted that you must never cough or sneeze while the orchestra plays. What if you really, really have to sneeze, we wanted to know. You mustn’t do it, she insisted. But what if you have a cold, we persisted. If you have a cold, Mrs. Morgan ended the discussion, you do not go to the symphony. It’s stuck with me for forty-plus years.)

Then, last night, we walked up the street to the Checkerboard Lounge to hear the marvelous Dee Alexander, part of the Hyde Park Jazz Society’s regular Sunday night series. I’d seen her a couple of years ago at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, where she blew me away.

She did it again last night. Her backing trio were terrific, especially the dynamic Ernie Adams on drums, and Ms. Alexander herself was in fine voice. She has an astonishing range, not just in terms of octaves, but also in the variety of vocal sounds she commands, from guttural grunts and howls to the sweetest of bird-song trills. Her music is both keenly intelligent and fiercely passionate, a difficult combination to pull off (it’s perhaps the secret to why Mozart keeps ahead of Haydn in public estimation). Her new CD, Wild is the Wind, received a rave five-star review in Downbeat. The whole evening had the feel of watching a musician on the verge of breaking out into the international spotlight. I wonder what Chicago singer will end up playing Haydn to Ms. Alexander’s Mozart?