The Cher Show at TPAC
On the freezing nights of January 19th and 20th, 2024, and despite its own frigid theater, TPAC managed to warm up Nashville with a delightful production of The Cher Show, a multi-Tony Award-winning jukebox musical detailing Cher’s long and remarkably prodigious career.
Generally, the problem with the jukebox musical is the narrative–how to string many songs (in this case over 25) into some kind of story for an evening that makes sense and isn’t forced. However, here it works quite well because Cher’s career, from Phil Spector to Moonlight, from early television to autotune, from Sonny Bono to Rob “Bagel Boy” Camilletti, is as diverse, if not more so, than her huge catalogue of songs. As is typical of musical biographies, her life is split into three stages—youth “Babe”, adult “Lady” and legacy “Star”, and the musical quite innovatively has these three stages appear as characters on stage.
Representing Cher in her youth (late teens through 20s) “Babe” Ella Perez performed quite well, balancing the young artist’s drive and idealism with her naiveté. Her duets with Sonny Bono (Lorenzo Pugliese) wonderfully expressed the sweet electricity and tension in their relationship (which you can still sense in the old youtube videos). As Cher the “Lady,” Catherine Ariale brought the confidence of Cher’s success, and made for a very relatable character in the face of her frustrations and setbacks. Morgan Scott’s “Star” embodied the woman in an amazing fashion. While all three sang in her incredible contralto range (the lowest female vocal range, overlapping a tenor), Scott’s diction was a magical interpretation of Cher’s singular, affected accent. She danced and walked with that lithe, paced gate and remarkable poise in nearly every ridiculous costume imaginable. And the costumes, oh the costumes!
They were sexy, flamboyant and as outrageous as Cher’s costumes were in real life. This is largely because the company hired Bob Mackie to design the costumes—Cher’s actual costume designer since the 60s. Further, Antoinette Dipietropolo’s sharp choreography contributed to an evening that, by the finale, had the audience dancing so exuberantly in their seats that security felt the need to come down the aisles and glare. The only real difficulty I found in the staging was Gregg Allman’s scene, which was a little more country western than he, his music, or his band ever were—it was more a New York Broadway clichéd 50s Nashville than 70s era Southern Rock from Atlanta.
Rick Elice’s book is also to be commended. Her three primary lovers caricatured in the musical, Sonny Bono, Greg Allman, and Rob Camilletti are not blamed so much as complicated. Her nostalgia for Sonny Bono and the moment she mentions his death is heartrending, even as there is frank discussion of their monetary disputes and silly comedy. Greg Allman (played by a suave Mike Bindeman) reflects his character’s notorious womanizing and flightiness even as it is contrasted with his love for her and their son. Camilletti’s (Charles Blaha) frustrated violence is contrasted with his loyalty. The depictions add up to a life and history of relationships that are balanced between the good and the bad, the nostalgia, fondness and regret. This is all to say that it feels, dare I say, authentic.
This certainly isn’t to say that there isn’t some historical revisioning happening. “Half-Breed,” Cher’s anthem to the native American population, is repositioned in the musical as her proclaiming her “half-breed” Armenian ancestry. It is hard to believe this given the existing video of her singing the song in native headdress, and the lyrics: “My father married a pure Cherokee.” This was a time when it was cool to claim Native American heritage, but it simply didn’t age nearly as well as she has.
In a related way, because so much of the musical is about her relationships, one gets the feeling that the musical wouldn’t pass any application of the Bechdel test. Even when she is alone with Lucielle Ball, the dialogue is about Sonny, and indirectly about Desi Arnaz. In a world dominated by men, Cher rose to stardom; it is this fact that makes her career so powerful and this musical so inspiring, even as it is entertaining, fun and glamourous. As a feminist call, her career too, perhaps hasn’t aged well, but as a story, it’s beautiful. The Cher Show’s run in Nashville is over, unfortunately, but if you don’t mind a bit of a drive, you can still catch it in Lexington, KY January 26-28th.
At the Schermerhorn
Great Gershwin by the Nashville Symphony
Many reading this have heard the name George Gershwin, and know his story. But for those who do not know of him, Gershwin was an American composer and pianist who lived from 26 September 1898 to 11 June 1937. Albeit short, his life was remarkable and deeply influential for musicians throughout the 20th century, and onward. His music still resonates today, a melting pot of genres, of which I had the honor to listen to Saturday, January 13th at the Nashville Symphony’s concert. Though long deceased, this past weekend, the Nashville Symphony brought his music to light in a kaleidoscope of color and timbre.
When I first arrived, walking into the Schermerhorn Symphony Center felt like walking back in time to a New Year’s celebration. The lights and decorations were still up throughout the building, the elegant stairs perfectly clean and ornamented, and balloons on every floor; an immediate sense of warmth and coziness drifted through me. Before entering the symphony hall, my partner and I decided to take a photo in front of a beautiful neon blue sign that read “#NASHSYMPH,” with #NASH stacked on top of SYMPH and decorated, again, with balloons abound. The staff, along with taking the photo for us, were warm and welcoming. They greeted us with much enthusiasm and charm.
Conducting the performance was none other than Byron Stripling. A world-famous conductor, both renowned for his conducting and trumpet skills, he opened up the performance with a beautiful and moving orchestral piece. After finishing said piece, his charisma shone through with his bow and quick jokes about himself and life as a musician. Shortly after this, Mr. Stripling introduced us to Sydney McSweeney, a young, beautiful, and tremendously talented singer who I’m sure will take the jazz genre by storm. With Mr. Stripling on trumpet and Bill Cunliffe on piano, the trio sung their renditions of several of Gershwin’s works, which the orchestra often answering the siren calls of Ms. McSweeney’s vocals. She moved so easily from head to chest voice, so fluidly from a nasally timbre to full round, and warm. If Gershwin were alive today, I’m sure he would have been as stricken as I was by the trio’s rendition.
After a brief intermission, the orchestra and chamber groups reassembled and we took our seats. Mr. Stripling resumed his role as conductor and trumpeter, while introducing us to Tony DeSare, a pianist and vocalist. With Jim Rupp on drums and the Nashville Symphony behind him, he played and sang beautiful renditions of some of Gershwin’s most famous works, including “A Foggy Day” and “The Man I Love,” the latter of which was my personal favorite. While not as deep and round as that of Sydney McSweeney, Tony’s voice was a unique mix of soulful and pop-like, eerily similar to that of Michael Bublé. After a few more songs, Tony got up and told us the story of how Gershwin’s most famous piece, “Rhapsody in Blue,” came to be. Back in 1924, a bandleader named Paul Whiteman approached Gershwin, asking him to compose a piece for a concert of his that was to take place in five weeks. Gershwin refused, citing the timeline was far too tight.
The next day, Whiteman told journalists Gershwin had agreed, essentially forcing Gershwin to compose the piece. The first spark of “Rhapsody in Blue” came as he was riding the train, listening to the sound of the wheels against the tracks, and thinking of how our country came to be. This grew into his belief that America is a “kaleidoscope” of culture and hard work; so many different cultures coming into one area to form a diverse, yet beautiful, union. Under this idea, “Rhapsody in Blue” was born. Mr. Stripling, Mr. DeSare, and the Nashville Symphony brought this kaleidoscope to life Saturday night, with a spectacular light show and with their sound. With each motif, each phrase, it was almost as if I could hear the train tracks myself; from the harsh, loud, and brassy to the soft, melodic, and soothing, every motif was a different color, yet they all came together so perfectly, no matter how much they clashed in theory. That night, the Nashville Symphony brought Gershwin back to life.
Overall, the performance was spectacular. Walking in I was particularly intrigued by the unique setup: a full orchestra in the back, with a little plastic room built to the right of the conductor, where a bassist and drummer played. It wasn’t until after the opening piece I realized this was set up to best perform chamber pieces. However, I can’t state enough how beautiful this concert was, how well thought out and how well put together each performance was. I swear, hearing the Nashville Symphony perform was like looking back in time, back to what Gershwin saw: the largest kaleidoscope in the world.
At the Frist
Music City Baroque Performs the Music of Spanish Latin America
The exhibit Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500-1800 was curated by Ilona Katzew originally for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and is currently on display at the Frist Museum in Nashville until January 28th. Even more impressive than the scope of the exhibit’s theme is the range of types of objects on display. There are plenty of paintings to be sure, but colorful, beautiful bowls and screens and other artifacts demonstrate the practically global range of cultural influences on the arts in all domains, and especially the everyday, made by the people living in the Americas throughout the Spanish colonial period. This variety is more than impressive, however; it’s an integral part of the exhibit’s whole post-colonial perspective. The everyday objects on display help to fill in the gaps left by a largely Spanish bias in the records and histories of its colonies in the Americas, and they do so in a direct, vivid way. It’s one thing to try and get a sense for day-to-day life during the period through the journals of Jesuit missionaries or the records of colonial bureaucracies, but it’s quite another to see these incredible objects that might just as easily have been as lost to us as the memories of the very real people who made, handled, and used them. That they’ve survived into the present is the result often of luck, sure, but also the careful, diligent work of historical preservationists over the centuries.
While overcoming colonial bias in our record of material culture is, then, obviously a challenge, it’s not one without a wealth of ways to work around. The same can hardly be said for what we can know about musicmaking during the same time. Most of what remains to us, especially in any form that can be readily performed, does so because it was written down in traditional European music notation, and probably for some type of Catholic liturgical purpose or perhaps as a part of a commercial enterprise. Even without considering the sheer volume of works that must have been notated in Spanish America during the period in question that simply have not survived at all, it’s clear that many of the specifics of contemporary performance practice will probably always remain somewhat unclear, to say nothing then of all the lost means, styles, and traditions of (especially popular and/or indigenous) musicmaking that would never have been written down or about in the first place. These are the challenges that Music City Baroque confronted in their musical analogue to the Frist’s exhibit, Music and Musicians in Spanish Latin America, last Saturday afternoon.
Despite the built-in difficulty of finding a suitable musical equivalent to something like household pottery for all the reasons outlined above and more, Music City Baroque President Mareike Sattler and Artistic Director Maria Romero Ramos nevertheless managed to provide an interesting if all-too brief glimpse into the musical life of the time. For example, the program’s opening piece was a Marian hymn in the Quechuan language by the Franciscan parish priest living in Lima, Peru, Juan Pérez Bocanegra, which, according to the program notes, represents “the first printed piece of polyphony in the Americas.”
This was followed by a setting of Beatus vir by Domenico Zipoli, a composer and Jesuit priest working in Paraguay. Zipoli’s Beauts Vir comprised the majority of the first half of the concert, and alongside the concluding trio of villancicos (a semi-liturgical, quasi-popular genre of sacred music described jokingly by Sattler as “proto praise and worship music”) saw Music City Baroque as an ensemble at their best. Guest performer and guitarist Dušan Balarin, also performed a solo fandango by the eighteenth-century Spanish composer Santiago da Murcia, whose published scores circulated in the Americas. Given the multicultural roots of fandango as a genre—with its origins in African and Spanish traditions in the Caribbean, but also as a cultural export back to Spain and the rest of Europe—da Murcia’s piece comes perhaps the closest to one of the core themes of the Frist’s art exhibit, namely that of “the generative power of Spanish America and its central position as a global crossroads.”
However, I think it’s the two instrumental pieces that followed the Zipoli Beatus vir that really allowed us to get a sense for the musicmaking of indigenous musicians during the period. Las Folias and Pastoreta Ypeche Flauta, performed here by two violins and solo recorder respectively, are anonymous, but were apparently part of a larger body of notated music recovered from a Jesuit mission, roughly a third of which was written by or for local musicians. I get the sense Music City Baroque were looking to prioritize breadth over depth of repertoire, which makes a certain amount of sense given the scope of the exhibit, but I would have liked to have heard more music from these anonymous composers.
In any case, it was during this middle portion of the concert that a minor disaster struck. It was hard to tell exactly what happened, but at some point during the performance of Las Folias, Maria Romero Ramos suddenly had to stop to retune a string or two. “That’s catgut for you,” she quipped to a laughing, forgiving audience. As she sought to get the strings back in order, the bridge (and maybe a tuning peg? Like I said, it was hard to tell from where I was seated) suddenly flew off the instrument entirely. Despite this being the kind of technical difficulty you don’t really expect to have to prepare for, Ramos was quick on her feet, and demonstrated the depth of her own professionalism and of the ensemble as a whole by pointing suddenly to Jessica Dunnavant to talk about her recorder and the upcoming Pastoreta Ypeche Flauta, which she delivered without so much as blinking as Ramos retreated offstage to see to her broken instrument (“Is there a violin in the house?” was met with more laughter).
For all my earlier talk about the Frist exhibit’s ability to evoke the everyday lives of the people of the past, Ramos’ faulty catgut strings or Dunnavant’s explanation of the expressive limitations of the period recorder she performed on served for me as interesting reminders of the limitations of thinking about this kind of exhibit/concert as some kind of virtual, imaginary “time machine.” Rather than understanding this experience as a process of transforming our understanding of the past by “traveling” to it, it’s worth remembering that these sounds and words, just like the bowls and paintings upstairs, have traveled forward in time and across wide stretches of space to us and are themselves changed in the process—an imperfect process overseen by institutions with plenty of failures of their own. Of course, catgut strings snapping or out-of-tune recorders are always a possibility in the historically-informed performance of a work by J.S. Bach or Claudio Monteverdi as well, but in the context of a concert dedicated in large part to the gaps and holes in our record of the musical past, of our ultimate inability to truly play it and hear it as it must have been, these sudden reminders of the materiality and lived-in nature of the musical traditions on display somehow felt appropriate.
Nuevo de Music City
La entrevista de MCR: Elizabeth Caballero y César Delgado hablan de ‘Florencia en la Amazonas’
La ópera de Nashville nos trae nuevamente una magnífica producción de la ópera Florencia en el Amazonas del compositor mexicano Daniel Catán. La obra se presentará los días 26, 27 y 28 de enero en el teatro James K. Polk. Esta es una ópera que nos su emerge en un viaje cautivador por el exuberante Amazonas junto con una historia realmente envolvente. Nos tenemos el honor de contar con la presencia de la soprano Elizabeth Caballero quien interpreta el papel de Florencia y también el tenor César Delgado encargado de dar la vida a Arcadio. Estos dos artistas nos compartán sus experiencias perspectivas sobre la obra y así como su participación en este emocionante proyecto. (Note: English Subtitles available)
From the Nashville Ballet
A Tale of Two Nutcrackers
The Nutcracker has been in the news lately. That’s unusual because this 19th-century masterpiece has been a staple of American holiday seasons for generations, remaining as part of the festive annual background decor. The tale of a young girl whose uncle introduces her to a fantasyland of treats from around the world is a perennial favorite. The use of both adults and children in short vignettes leaping from dancing flowers to fierce battles between mice and soldiers, to elegant duets regularly entrances dance lovers of all ages.
As part of the White House holiday celebrations, First Lady Jill Biden revealed a bright shiny take on Nutcracker selections incorporating specifically American elements. Those elements, jazz and tap dancing, fuse a variety of influences from the European and African continents, blended as only the USA can.
The theme of “Magic, Wonder, Joy” was encapsulated in a 2:25 video performed by Dorrance Dance, a New York-based tap dance specialty company founded by Michelle Dorrance. Along with Josette Wiggan, she choreographed six characters from the classic ballet cavorting among the decorations that included a gingerbread White House. The choreography was set to an exuberant jazz version of Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers,” from the Nutcracker Suite as arranged by American icons of Jazz, Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington and named with tongue firmly in cheek, “Danse of the Floreadores” (Toreador dance, get it?…LOL).
The White House décor, created by a host of volunteers and professionals supervised by Dr. Biden, made several references to an American literary classic. “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” the world-famous poem credited to New York-born writer Clement Clarke Moore is celebrating its second century of publication this year. Despite undeserved criticisms representative of the political hostilities currently infecting American society even in a time traditionally devoted to peace and love, the décor and dance proudly celebrated the best of our American melting pot.
I suppose something like this pride is what I expected from the Nashville Nutcracker, yet the references to Nashville were obscure, seemingly limited to images of Nashville landmarks, like the Stalbaum Hotel, on the scrim. Yes, there are references to the Parthenon Garden and the “Dew Drop” fairy (named after the famed Inn) in the program, but I didn’t see it on the stage. I’d thought the soldiers might be dressed in country music cowboy garb or perhaps a few American folk dance moves might have been incorporated among the wonderful danse caractéristiques of Act II. After all, Nashville is a global city.
It’s more than likely that I wouldn’t have been distracted by seeking Nashville attributions had they not been such a significant part of the advertising. Still, once it became clear they were unlikely to be found, it was time to settle in. The production was lovely, with brilliant costuming, and orchestral playing that easily shifted from elegant to rousing. The woodwinds, in particular, were at their best in the beautifully varied tone colors of Tchaikovsky’s composition.
Elements of Drosselmeyer’s magic were well-placed in the beginning, though the repetition of a trick with light, appearing and disappearing, was eventually a bit overdone. The sets and costumes glowed with magic and wonder, which was consistently supported by Scott Leathers’ effective lighting. The entire production was skillfully coordinated.
Aside from the magic tricks, other clever and charming moments performed by the Nashville Nutcracker Youth Cast, including baby mice scampering from the fireplace. The Snow Queen and King pas de deux was an extremely attractive example of classical ballet choreography, with Colette Tilinski and Nicolas Scheuer exuding elegance and control. The Waltz of the Flowers with costumes of green sepals and delicate pastel petals decorated Artistic Director Emeritus Paul Vasterling’s imaginative use of the floor space with graceful poses and the excellent coordination of the corps de ballet. One other area of progress: although the names are not online, a handout identified all the major roles and their performers.
The danse caractéristiques, thematic dances that consistently steal the show from generation to generation, stole the show. The contrast between “Tea” (danse chinoise) and “Coffee” (danse arabe) were highlights among the highlights. The use of elements of Beijing acrobatic performed by Aeron Buchanan and the lively 7-person dragon in the danse chinoise added theatrical authenticity, while the sensuous sinewy movements of Emily Ireland-Buczek, as a snake rising from a basket, lulled the audience into a sense of luxurious tranquility.
These kinds of contrasts were very well-paced so the audience was ready for the Autumn Tierney’s wacky Madame Bonbonniere vignette with its slapstick elements. Seeing the Youth Cast bonbon dancers in commedia dell’arte clown costuming appear in a seemingly endless line from under Sally’s dress was a delight, although it fell a bit flat with much of the audience.
FYI: the original character name, Mother Gigogne is a fictional character, a woman with many many children. Poupées gigognes is French for Russian nesting dolls. The renaming of the mother character here is appropriate given the original name of the fantasyland that Clara visits is Confiturenburg [Town of Candied Fruit].
For dance connoisseurs, the grande pas de deux after the Waltz of the Flowers is a treat worth waiting for and this performance did not disappoint. Lily Saito as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Garritt McCabe as her Cavalier danced with a captivating delicacy that belied the strength and mastery such a choreography requires. While most audiences enjoy the leaps and acrobatics, Nashville’s audience appreciated true skill even when clothed in subtlety. The entire production deserved all of the enthusiastic plaudits it received, helping prove that the Nutcracker, whether classic ballet in Nashville or classic jazz in DC will charm and delight for generations to come.
The Cher Show at TPAC This Weekend
The Cher Show is a multi-Tony Award-winning jukebox musical which features 35 of her hit songs and tells her life story. Covering such a lengthy career calls for more than one woman and takes three women to play her: the kid starting out, the glam pop star, and the icon. These different versions of herself interact with each other as her story is told. The musical covers the ups and downs of her career, from when she and Sonny were “broke-ass broke,” to when Cher’s mother tells her to marry a rich man and she answers, “Mom, I am a rich man.”
In a pop-music landscape of rapid change and one-hit wonders, this EGOT-winning superstar is the only solo artist to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart for seven consecutive decades, and has a separate Wikipedia entry listing her awards and nominations.
After its premiere on Broadway in 2018 and a national tour delayed by COVID-19, The Cher Show is making its tour with Bob Mackie again in charge of the show’s Tony Award-winning costumes.
To see Cher interviewed with some of the original Broadway cast, see Jimmy Fallon’s interview with them in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVt40fhq6E8. Coming to TPAC this weekend only, The Cher Show will be performed January 19-20, with two evening shows and a matinee. For tickets see The Cher Show | Broadway Shows in Nashville at TPAC and for more information about the national tour, see The Cher Show.
The MCR Interview
Peter Otto, the New Concertmaster of the Nashville Symphony
After a wealth of experience in the role elsewhere, Peter Otto has joined the Nashville Symphony as Concertmaster. The Music City Review journalist Carly Brown took the opportunity to ask him a few questions about his career, the position, and on a “lightning round” of perspectives.
New From Eric Nathan
Some Favored Nook
The 2023 release of Some Favored Nook is a project that brings together the talents of an impressive collective. Sonically weaving a web of cultural and societal connections, librettists Mark Campbell and Eric Nathan have adapted texts by Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Messages penned hundreds of years ago still resonate quite clearly for the twenty-first century listener.
Composed and workshopped during Eric Nathan’s residencies at the Copland House, Yellow Barn, and the American Academy in Rome, the live premiere of this work was given in 2019 at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas. Interestingly, Aaron Copland also set the words of Emily Dickinson to music, in the very place in which Nathan created parts of this project.
Eric Nathan found inspiration from Brenda Winapple’s book, White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Winapple reports how two strangers, presumably so different, defied odds and found a friendship of sorts. Winapple accounts Dickinson’s proclivity to be a reclusive poet, so much so that she was rather unknown during her day, having only published ten poems. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, quite differently, was a prominent essayist, minister, military commander, abolitionist, and supporter of women’s rights. Dickinson and Higginson wrote to each other for twenty-four years, but only met in person twice. Still, with the help of Mabel Loomis Todd, Higginson worked to posthumously publish the first edition of Emily Dickinson’s collected poetry.
Some Favored Nook is not a piece for the passive listener. One must engage and focus to truly benefit from the composition. Listening and experiencing the work almost becomes as active as does playing, singing, and, when being created, writing the piece requires.
Nathan’s work is composed in fifteen movements that are organized into three parts:
Some Favored Nook
| Part I | |
| I. To tell me what is true? | |
| II. The nearest dream recedes unrealized | |
| III. Could you tell me how to grow? | |
| IV. They shut me up in Prose | |
| V. My barefoot rank is better | |
| Part II | |
| VI. To see if we were growing | |
| VII. War feels to me an oblique place | |
| VIII. There suddenly arose | |
| IX. Emancipation | |
| X. All sounds ceased | |
| XI. There came a wind like a bugle | |
| XII. Attending to the wounded | |
| XIII. That shamed the nation | |
| Part III | |
| XIV. These are my introduction | |
| XV. My Wars are laid away in Books / No Prisoner be |
Various poems of Emily Dickinson appear throughout Some Favored Nook, accompanied by exchanges and commentary on Dickinson pulled from Higginson’s diaries and essays. Pulitzer Prize winning librettist Mark Campbell opens the work with the first correspondence between Dickinson and Higginson. Co-librettist Eric Nathan was focused on choosing texts that addressed, directly and obliquely, slavery and the American Civil War. It is an impressive feat how Campbell and Nathan have combined material spanning many years and from different formats into such a streamlined thread. Musically, however, the poems are not differentiated from other source material, which seems to be a bit of a disservice to the listener. The play within the play, as it were, can become a bit lost.
Part I introduces Nathan’s economy of composition. Silence quickly becomes as significant a texture as does sound. The piano is scored in the mid-to-high range, interjecting as if to eavesdrop, while leaving traces of dissonance and pitch references for the vocal forces.
Soprano Tony Arnold’s contributions open with a clear, beautiful tone, utilizing vibrato brilliantly to encourage energy within the dialogue. It quickly becomes clear why Arnold is an international contemporary ensemble guest with leading groups throughout the world and on faculty of the Peabody Conservatory and Tanglewood Music Center.
Within the text of the opening movement, Higginson mention’s Emily Dickinson’s lack of punctuation, instead using dashes to provide structure to her poems. It doesn’t seem as though when a dash is present in the libretto that it is given any significance with music. Citing Higginson’s commentary about punctuation, but not addressing the chosen punctuation with a leitmotif of sorts, seems to be a missed opportunity.
“The nearest dream recedes unrealized” may require a slight edit. Higginson’s last phrase of this movement listed in the accompanying booklet actually exists for the track of the next movement, “Could you tell me how to grow?” During the latter, Seth Knopp’s piano playing begins to substantially expand its range, somehow both grounding the work and heightening the drama. Knopp’s artistry regularly enriches his community as a faculty member of the Peabody Institute, a founding member of the Peabody Trio, and artistic director of both Yellow Barn and New Music at the Nasher.
Part I ends, overall, with two strong movements: “They shut me up in Prose” and “My barefoot rank is better.” The penultimate movement could leave the listener slightly confused in that the libretto offers, “They shut me up in Prose . . .” at a moment when the work is scored to be most active and regular to this point – the libretto and score seem to be in conflict. Any such conflict is quickly resolved as the composition dies out and makes a strong impact with the text, “That it manages to exist at all.” The final movement is host to such vulnerability. “My barefoot rank is better” could not possibly end in a more effective manner.
Part II is the strongest segment of the work. William Sharp’s baritone voice catapults the text into the listener’s soul. Sharp is no stranger to bringing new works to life, having participated in premiere performances and recordings by the likes of Leonard Bernstein, John Harbison, John Musto, Jon Deak, Libby Larson, David Del Tredici, Lori Laitman, Steven Paulus, Scott Wheeler, and David Liptak. Inspiring future generations as a pedagogue since 1977, Sharp has been on faculty of the Peabody Conservatory since 2002.
“To see if we were growing” abruptly changes textures, with the work scored in a strong and full manner that brilliantly continues to showcase Sharp’s voice. Images of war are referenced with a chattering telegram being received in the piano as a galloping calvary of soldiers assembles. Eric Nathan scores a meaningful arch of sound that positively milks content of all emotion possible.
The only moment where performance briefly dips occurs in the following movement, “War feels to me an oblique place.” Here, the voice and piano are not in agreement with respect to pitch, which is quickly adjusted, but nonetheless present. Nathan composes this movement in a less-aggressive manner than that which immediately proceeds it, but somehow manages to create an aesthetic still heavy with a gravitas of subject matter and meaning.
“There suddenly arose” seems to fluctuate with respect to the composition’s motivation and inspiration. At times, text painting is present, whereas other moments seem to divorce the text from that which Nathan has scored. What doesn’t fluctuate is the movement’s sense of home; a repeated pitch mesmerizes the listener, especially as other textures ultimately collapse into this solitarily sonic shelter. A strategic use of attacca connects to “Emancipation” and the repeated pitch which brought closure is now the point of departure as the work keeps unfolding. As relevant today as it was when penned by Dickinson in 1862, the text offers that, “Captivity is consciousness, So’s liberty.”
Eric Nathan flexes his Schubertian muscles, bringing together text and music to tell a story in “All sounds ceased.” The movement ends simply with the piano resonating those sounds that came before, depicting a smoke-laden battlefield. As has become expected by now, Sharp’s voice adds a magical tone quality and emotion to match. The consequences of the previous movement’s actions are powerfully answered in the next movement, “There came a wind like a bugle.” This landscape dissolves into a Copland-esque portrait, perhaps an homage, ending with an eerie acapella recitation of Dickinson’s poem, “A death-blow is a life-blow to some.”
Part II ends with “That shamed the nation.” Nathan scores opening dissonances which are patient and serve to somewhat heal the experience of this entire segment. Judgement seems to then be made from the bellowed howl of the baritone voice. The openness of the ending gestures have a profoundness that numbs the listener.
The compositional style that has been used throughout Some Favored Nook is starting to become exhausted by Part III. Only consisting of two movements, the loneliness of “These are my introduction” gives way to the final movement, “My Wars are laid away in Books/No Prisoner be.” Text and music shapes are repeated in both the soprano and baritone voices, with preference given to the affect created by Arnold. Balancing also seems to favor the soprano texture over that of the baritone; it is unclear as to whether this is a deliberate performance choice, a mere reality of the scoring, or a post-production decision. The absence of the piano may remind one of a Greek chorus, teaching the listener the lesson this parable of a song cycle has attempted to offer. After the forty-five-minute journey that is Some Favored Nook, the weight of its charge is profound.
In addition to composing, Eric Nathan serves as associate professor of music in composition and theory at Brown University. Nathan has won numerous prizes and awards. It is no wonder why leading orchestras, chamber groups, and conductors continue to schedule performances from his catalogue of works. Take advantage of the recently released recording of Some Favored Nook. The artistry is sure to move the heart and its message will hopefully stir one’s soul. Below is a teaser from New Focus, and Some Favored Nook is available on Spotify and Amazon for streaming.
Mussorgsky, Corigliano and Ravel at the Schermerhorn
On January 5th, 2024, the Nashville Symphony presented Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Maurice Ravel’s Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, and John Corigliano’s song cycle One Sweet Morning sung by Internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke.
The concert opened with Ravel’s Valses (Waltzes) which Ravel, the great assimilator, had originally written for piano in homage to Franz Schubert’s own collection of Waltzes from 1823. By 1912 he had orchestrated them for a ballet titled Adélaïde ou le language des fleurs (the ballet is rarely performed). Ravel’s incredibly rich harmonies are balanced by an equally rich orchestration and Maestro Guerrero, in his element, allowed the melodies to whirl around the room as if the Schermerhorn were some Parisian dance hall decorated with a fin de siècle decadence. The contrasting nature of the various waltzes was a lite appetizer for a much heavier meal to follow.
According to the program, and in consultation with the program, Maestro Guerrero selected Corigliano’s One Sweet Morning to record as a complement to the forthcoming recording of Corigliano’s Triathlon (performed earlier this season). One Sweet Morning was written on a commission from the New York Philharmonic to commemorate the tenth anniversary of 9/11. During its conception, Corigliano struggled with engaging the audiences memories of the event even as he sought “…both to refute and complement” them. Apparently, one of his strategies was to use poetry to ground the expression in the specific. For this he assembled bold texts from various authors. It is difficult to know the extent to which Corigliano sought to effect memories of the catastrophe, but he certainly engaged with mine.
The first movement, particularly, with its setting of Czeslaw Milosz’s text, “A Song at the End of the World,” written in Warsaw at the height of World War Two was immensely powerful. On the morning of 9/11, one of the most disturbing things about that day, was the fact that up and down the Eastern Seaboard, it was a beautiful autumn day. The disturbing thing wasn’t the sunshine, but it was the sunshine juxtaposed with the tragedy, almost as if nature had no problem with what was going on. The way that poets believe that if words don’t rhyme, they are not true, Romantics (at least since Schelling’s Naturphilosophen) believe that nature corroborates life, on 9/11 it simply didn’t. Milosz’s first strophe text carries the idea well:
On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
The disquiet portrayed by Corigliano’s his post-modern melodic line, beautifully articulated through Sasha Cooke’s elegant, radiating voice, brought this contrasting dialectic of peace and tragedy into a chilling expression. (She has a wonderful Instagram by the way). At the line “The voice of a violin lasts in the air and leads into a starry night” was played with stirring intensity as the Nashville Symphony welcomed its new concert master Peter Otto into the fold.
Personally, I found the second movement, Patroclus, more difficult than the first. Drawing its text from Homer’s Iliad, Patroclus was a violent hero and soldier who died heroically in the trojan war. The text that Corigliano excerpted for his movement graphically depicts a disturbing and remarkably violent killing spree. Corigliano’s setting is all militaristic bluster and bravado—bringing to mind President Bush with a megaphone, or Donald Rumsfeld’s WMD(s) and the decades of violence that ensued in our longest war. By relating 9/11 and the aftermath to the Iliad, Corigliano was successful in generalizing the memory and broadly contextualizing the moment into history.
The third movement is much more atmospheric and draws on a broad view of the battlefield, briefly shattered by the intimate at “My husband—my sons—you’ll find them there.” Here the balance Guerrero maintained between singer and orchestra was notably perfect. In all, the final movement brought us to a utopian dream, cadencing with Cooke representing humanity seeking, reaching, striving for an era of peace. Here at the cadence, her voice leaped beautifully across an octave and a half to a dominant harmony that left more questions than answers–as if Corigliano is admitting he has no idea what such a future would be like. Triathlon or not, I’ll be purchasing the recording of this performance when it is released.
After a nice intermission, and an all too brief glimpse of doughjoe’s work—the NSO’s new Artist-in-Residence (it was fantastic to see Ella Sheppard Moore celebrated), we headed back to our seats for Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Mussorgsky’s work was written to depict the experience of visiting a memorial exhibition of Viktor Hartmann’s work not long after he had suddenly died of an aneurism in 1873. Hartmann was a friend of Mussorgsky and one of the first artists to include traditional Russian motives in his work. As such he was a hero to Mussorgsky and the other members of the “Mighty Five” who were themselves seeking to create a nationalist movement in Russian art. Interestingly, set against the previous two pieces, Mussorgsky’s work, even on piano and without Ravel’s inspired arrangement for orchestra, is clearly superior. Its starkly contrasting movements are achieved without the graphic nature of the Corigliano and they are unified by a constantly transformed “Promenade.” Indeed, Ravel’s assimilation of Mussorgsky’s style, and mimicry of that style when he orchestrated “Pictures” is more moving than anything Rimsky-Korsakov ever arranged.
The Orchestra brought Mussorgsky’s nationalism to life with a grandeur complemented by intimacy. Through Mussorgsky’s music, in Ravel’s arrangement and under Guerrera’s baton, Hartmann’s gnomes were ugly, his oxen fearful and his catacombs eerie and haunted. After Baba Yaga’s cackling, the Great Gate of Kiev arose out of the mists. It was a stirring moment and the audience was caught up in it, leaping to their feat in applause at the very end. In retrospect, it was disturbing to think that this is the same Kiev, the capital of the independent state of Ukraine, that Russia is currently invading. The stirring moment is probably akin to the nationalism that has sparked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Mussorgsky’s is a nationalism whose design and violence caused and outlasted all the wars of the 20th century, continuing into the 21st. It begs the question: To what extent should we be performing these pieces, particularly at a time when our allies are falling in battle to this very ideal. Unfortunately, it seems that Patroclus lives on. The Nashville Symphony returns next week with Great Gershwin! A pops concert celebrating George Gershwin.
Nuevo de Music City
Cultura hispanoamericana 1500-1800: una colaboración entre la Music City Baroque y la Frist
(English Version Here: https://wp.me/pabEmc-2yB)
En colaboración con el Frist Art Museum, y junto con la exposición actual del museo Arte e Imaginación en la América Española, 1500-1800, the Music City Baroque llevará a cabo un concierto en el museo el sábado 13 de enero de 2024 titulado Música y Músicos en la Latinoamérica Española, 1500-1800.La exposición, que presenta un compendio de medios mixtos de lo más destacado de la colección de arte colonial español del Museo de Arte del Condado de Los Ángeles, muestra una asombrosa diversidad de artistas que se basan en una amplia gama de tradiciones expresadas tanto en el arte sagrado como en el secular, contrastando la tradición recibida de la concepción monolítica del arte hispanoamericano.
Un excelente ejemplo de la riqueza de la colección es La Virgen de Guadalupe (1691) de Manuel de Arellano. La obra es una copia minuciosa de la original, una imagen aquiropoeta (que no es creado por un humano) de la Virgen sobre una tilma, que permanece en la Basílica de Guadalupe de la Ciudad de México, donde se venera como reliquia de la Virgen. Se dice que esta basílica es el santuario católico más visitado del mundo. Según la leyenda, y como se representa en las cuatro esquinas del cuadro, la Virgen se apareció a Juan Diego tres veces para que convenciera al obispo local de que le construyera una capilla al norte de la Ciudad de México. Se dice que su aparición en la tilma entre flores exóticas (como se representa en la parte inferior derecha del cuadro de Arellano) finalmente convenció al obispo. Al cuadro, Arellanos añadió la inscripción “tocada a la original” para enfatizar que la copia era auténtica y compartía una conexión con la reliquia. Junto con esta hermosa obra, la exposición presenta una generosa muestra de pinturas, esculturas y artes decorativas para que los visitantes puedan explorar.
De manera similar, según un correo electrónico de la presidenta de la junta directiva, Mareike Sattler, el concierto de Music City Baroque presentará una variedad de música de diferentes regiones” [de Hispanoamérica] durante este período. Un buen ejemplo en relación es el himno quechua del siglo XVII “Hanaq Pachap” del Perú. Este himno procesional a la Virgen María, fue probablemente escrito y compuesto por el sacerdote franciscano Juan Pérez de Bocanegra en lengua quechua. Como parte del libro Ritual Formulario de Bocanegra, se dice que el himno es la primera obra de polifonía vocal impresa en el hemisferio occidental. Sobre el Himno, Bocanegra menciona: “es una oración en verso sáfico, en la lengua quechua, hecha en loor de la Virgen sin mancilla: y va compuesta en música a cuatro voces, para que la canten los cantores en las procesiones, al entrar en la iglesia, y en los días de Nuestra Señora, y sus festividades”. La letra del himno está cuidadosamente moldeada para mantener un equilibrio sincrético; puede interpretarse de una manera que se adapte a una creencia católica ortodoxa y que aún así continúe en la cultura tradicional Quechua.
Extracto del Segundo Estrofa: “¡Atiende nuestras súplicas, oh columna de marfil, Madre de Dios! Hermoso iris, amarillo y blanco, recibe esta canción que te ofrecemos; ven en nuestro auxilio, muéstranos el fruto de tu vientre”. (Quechua: “Uyarihuai muchascaita Diospa rampan Diospamaman Yurac tocto hamancaiman Yupascalla, collpascaita Huahuaiquiman suyuscaita Ricuchillai.)
El himno, con su construcción homorítmica, síncopa vacilante, letras marianas vívidamente dramáticas y el énfasis en las flores nativas, se considera el equivalente auditivo de la época de la Escuela de pintura de Cuzco en Perú. La Escuela de Cuzco obtuvo una ligera influencia del Renacimiento flamenco e italiano, utilizando colores brillantes como el rojo y el amarillo, así como tonos tierra y abundantes láminas de oro para representar imágenes dramáticas. Aunque la Virgen de Guadalupe de Arellano es del mismo período y tiene algunas de estas características, su procedencia está demasiado al norte para pertenecer a la Escuela Cuzqueña.
Uno imagina que será en estas amplias conexiones culturales de creencias, expresión e interacción cultural donde la exhibición y el concierto encontrarán su mayor poder. Y, como relata Sattler, el concierto promete una gran selección de obras que incluyen música del mexicano Mauel Zumaya, un fandango para guitarra barroca de Santiago de Murcia, así como “piezas recientemente recuperadas de las misiones jesuitas en Bolivia” entre otras. Esta es una exposición que intenta representar el arte de varias culturas en dos continentes a lo largo de tres siglos, sin embargo, será inevitablemente reduccionista. Es crucial señalar que, para la Ciudad de la Música, esta colaboración entre The Frist y Music City Baroque marca un gran comienzo. El concierto se presentará el sábado 13 de enero y la exposición continuará hasta el 28 de enero en las galerías del nivel superior del Museo Frist.
Este artículo fue apoyado por una generosa subvención de
