Tag: Music

THE IMPORTANCE OF SMALL TOUCHES OVER TIME

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

From our perch today, it’s hard to believe that a Broadway musical like “South Pacific” could have been a bold statement on behalf of racial tolerance a half century ago.

I’m encouraged, of course, to see a Quaker connection.

First, even though the novelist James A. Michener, whose book was the basis of the show, had served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he was raised by a Quaker adoptive mother and attended Quaker-affiliated Swarthmore College. In other words, he had been exposed to both pacifist and racial equality values.

Second, as Vanity Fair writer Todd S. Purdom notes in “The Road to Bali-hai,” is that librettist Oscar Hammerstein’s wife’s niece Jennifer attended the George School, another Quaker institution, one where Michener also taught briefly. The Hammersteins’ own son Jimmy also went there, as did a young family friend named and future Broadway great Stephen Sondheim. (And to think how vigorously earlier Quakers denounced theater as vain entertainment!)

Purdom’s article contains another telling point. The hit song “I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair” was originally a flop. In the preview performances before the Broadway opening, director and co-author Josh Logan was perplexed to see it wasn’t connecting until he realized that star Mary Martin had the women in the audience so abuzz about whether she was actually washing her hair onstage that nobody ever heard the lyrics themselves. He fixed that by having her belt out the first stanza before working her hair.

I wonder about how many other small changes in any art form spell the difference between boffo hit and mundane shelving.

A similar tweak in “Wonderful Guy” changed the song to a soliloquy with the word “you” substituted for “they.” As Logan recalled, “That night they tore the house apart.”

As I was saying about small changes or a simple touch? Never underestimate the importance of revisions in art. Or maybe life itself.

~*~

Michener, by the way, wrote of his experience on the Electoral College elections with the telling title on his political science volume, Presidential Lottery: The Reckless Gamble on Our Electoral System.

He was so prescient there.

MAKING MUSIC TO WELCOME THE EQUINOX

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Once again, I’ll be in the choir along the Charles River as part of a free concert to welcome the autumn equinox and to praise the extraordinary cleanup of the once noxious waterway on its way to Boston Harbor.

For its 15th annual RiverSing, Boston Revels is moving the family-friendly event upstream from Cambridge and into the Allston section of Boston on the other bank.

We’ll be performing on a Saturday night, rather than Sunday, and it is part of an ongoing series of performances the park hosts, so we’ll have more publicity support than usual for a one-off event in what’s otherwise simply a good place to sunbathe in season.

But the change also means we won’t have our usual gaudy parade down a congested street from Harvard Square to the makeshift stage beside the John W. Weeks Footbridge. That procession has always been glorious and joyfully chaotic, but greatly annoying to any number of drivers waiting to continue on the busy thoroughfare we were blocking. Not all of them are amused, believe me.

On the other hand, free parking won’t be scarce, either, and we’ll be on a permanent stage at the Herter Park amphitheater, which also includes seats for the audience rather than bring-your-own-chairs or blankets on the ground.

For me, it’s always been memorable. Imagine looking down from the back row and watching a pianist in the guest group with us and thinking, “He’s an incredible keyboardist” – and then hearing he plays in the Boston Pops Orchestra. Or singing behind Noel Paul Stuckey of Peter, Paul, and Mary. That’s even before the sunsets, which we get to see from the stage but are behind the audience. This year, it will be off to the side of everyone. Get the picture?

Join us tonight, if you can. For details, go to the Boston Revels website.

ONE KIND DEED INSPIRES ANOTHER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 7 Comments

When she begins her investigation in my new novel, What’s Left, she may think her generation’s quite different from her father’s.

But her family does run a family restaurant, and that gives her a different insight:

We can always count on someone looking for a handout at the back door. We’re happy to oblige them. And they’re happy, too – the word spreads.

~*~

Restaurants are often staffed by an underworld of their own, or so I’m told. And some of the characters aren’t that far removed from the folks looking for a handout.

I’m surprised to see how many people in my own community remain invisible, especially when your eyes look instead to “normal” society.

Have you ever gone to a “soup kitchen” or charity food pantry? Have you ever worked in one? What was your experience?

~*~

If Cassia’s great-grandparents had only bought this house instead! And it’s almost pink … (Manchester, New Hampshire.)

TEN HOT HISPANIC MUSICIANS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

According to one amiga and her buds:

  1. Dulce Marcia.
  2. Jencarlos Canela.
  3. Rolando Polo, pop-opera tenor.
  4. Moneda Dura.
  5. Balvin.
  6. Willy Chirino.
  7. Shakira. (And here I’m trying to keep this to performers new to the rest of us. So be it.)
  8. Manolito Simonet.
  9. Gilberto Santa Rosa.
  10. Myriam Herandez.

Admittedly, this list is biased in a Cuban direction. But it’s a start.

~*~

Digame más. I’m all ears. Any other world music talent we should know about?

A whimsical fence. Warren, Maine.

Of course, this is totally unrelated to the theme. Just another thing on my mind.

OH, THE FINALS WEEK ORGY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Among the gifts I received at Christmas was a tablet laptop, with the expectation I’d be using especially for Kindle editions – including my own ebooks.

But so far what I’ve really appreciated is its ability to stream music.

For me, that’s meant Q2’s New Sounds and Operavore from WQXR in New York and WHRB from Harvard University in Cambridge.

With solid jazz from 5 a.m. till 1 p.m. and some adventurous classical continuing till 10 p.m., plus the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons and another opera on Sunday night, my listening is mostly on the Harvard station. Admittedly, the student announcers can be unintentionally amusing in their pronunciations and amateurish touches, but I usually find that more amusing than annoying.

This spring, though, I finally got to experience an amazing tradition on the station – the finals week Orgy, when the regular programming is set aside for in-depth presentations of specific composers or performers.

Continue reading “OH, THE FINALS WEEK ORGY” →

PRELUDE & FUGUE 28/

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

an elephant with flowers painted
around the eyes and painted toenails

four zebras sipping water

*   *   *

luxurious green tent on safari white bone
ornaments through noses armed for the hunt
and cocktails already served
three African bushmen in a field of wrinkled flesh
eyelid (the elephant) the rain
is needed, sticky or no sticky (unlike the rhino)

zebras, black and white in a splash of vibrant green
with netting over the bed
luxurious green tent on safari white
bone ornaments through their noses
armed for the hunt and cocktails
already served three bushmen in a field
of wrinkled African flesh, an eyelid (the elephant)
the rain is needed, sticky or no sticky
(unlike the rhino) zebras, black and white

in a splash of vibrant green            with netting
over the bed’s luxurious green safari tent
white bone noses armed for the ornamental
hunt cocktails served by three bushmen
in an African field of wrinkled eyelids needing rain
sticky or no sticky the elephant (unlike the rhino) or
zebras, black and white in a splash
of vibrant green netting over the bed ornaments

beasts leaping from dust into a tropical river
before a tiger atop a car spirals between
four zebras sipping water the way
a camel’s nose runs ahead of its mouth:

the hairy trunk and mouth of an elephant, so spotted
forages on hind legs, trunk and tusks upraised to the tree

the elephant with flowers painted
around the eyes and painted toenails
still leaps from the dust into a tropical river

a camel’s nose runs ahead of its mouth from hind legs
upraised to the tree in front of the tiger
atop a car of spiraling spots

the hairy trunk and mouth with flowers painted
around the eyes guarding four zebras sipping water
and the foraging beasts leap from dust into the river
running ahead of its mouth

a camel on hind legs, the tree painted with flowers
and toenails a feeling of life finally coming together

atop a car, four zebras leap from the dust
into a hairy river and forage
a feeling of life finally coming together these days

~*~

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.

THE SILENCE IN BEETHOVEN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to the fine arts, we love our biographies of tortured genius, and Ludwig van Beethoven serves the storytellers admirably. Baptized December 17, 1770, in Bonn, his tempestuous and tragic life was one of failed love affairs, strained friendships, and especially the deafness that accompanied his greatest musical achievements. And yet many of us find him not only speaking for us but also extending inspiration in the quest for fullness and fidelity.

In part it’s a story of the way Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven reestablish the center of classical music, centering it in the German-speaking world far from its Italian roots and the Renaissance genius of Monteverdi and Palestrina.

As I discussed earlier this year, Beethoven’s popularity rests largely on works that he wrote in the second half of his life, past the age of Mozart’s death, the years that encompass what are known as his Middle (or Heroic) and Late periods. The years accompanied by deafness.

For much of my life, I’ve not been alone in finding that what most appealed to me were the works from the Middle period – the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth symphonies, the violin and “Emperor” piano concertos, the Rasumovsky string quartets – stirring works raging with dramatic struggle and promised victory. With all of their emotional parallels to athletic contests, these have justifiably ensured his enduring public adoration.

More recently, though, they’ve given way in my estimation as the Late period works have risen in preference. Quite simply, these have never been considered all that accessible. Many of them defiantly turn their back on the audience in a pursuit of boldly intricate, often extended, musical puzzles that plumb the depths of human despair, loneliness, resolve, as well as lofty heights. Indeed, for years the assumption has been that these are not for public consumption but are rather reserved for private investigation among the cognoscenti, should they be so honored.

Continue reading “THE SILENCE IN BEETHOVEN” →

CURTAINS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

to embrace something with the wisdom of the final round

people crowding the boulevard in Baltimore
to watch Robert Kennedy’s funeral train pass
overhead

in that portrait of seven famed figures
Annie, turned to stone under a blue-jay feather

how that small town in snow looks more like Pennsylvania
or Midwest
than New England

Blake, the Muggletonian and lithographer
the surviving Beats portrayed
as Ginsberg tying a shoelace

would see something with the sharpness of the first time

all that baroque light over a cathedral altar
the cumulus effect
enveloping a solo deer

naked
in the garden
awaiting snowfall

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.