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Rite of Spring
Saturday, April 14 2018
Neville comported himself well during Saturday morning coffee (our first SMC since leaving for the Danube), suggesting the evil spell afflicting him yesterday had dissipated. In truth, it now seemed clear that we'd mishandled his resource gaurding behavior and contributed to its worsening. For example, one is never supposed to discourage a gaurding dog from growling, since this makes them more likely to bite without warning. Dogs also need to feel good about people approaching their cherished items, and if all a human does it take stuff away, eventually dogs come to resent anyone who approaches. A better technique is to "trade" with your guarding dog, exchanging something delicious and quickly consumable for something likely to stay around and induce gaurding problems for an extended period of time.
This evening Gretchen and I drove to Bard College to attend an all-Stravinsky orchestral concert conducted by Bard President Leon Botstein. Gretchen had sold it to me as The Rite of Spring, but there would be three other pieces from wildly different phases of Stravinsky's life (which, I was surprised to discover, slightly overlapped mine). Meeting us at Bard's Frank-Gehry-designed Fisher Center (which looks like something Gehry phoned in after lots of procrastination) were our friends Kate (who recently broke up with Joe, put her house on the market, and moved into Eva & Sandor's Maverick Street house) and Sarah the Vegan. "I thought you hated stuff like this," Kate said when she saw me. But I was actually excited to be there. Stravinsky is a composer I like independently of Gretchen, and I don't believe I've seen any of his work performed live.
Gretchen had gotten us front row seats almost in the center of the stage, so close that one could hear every whisper of the bows against strings (and there are a lot subtleties to the sounds created when performing Stravinsky).
The first piece, "Funeral Song," was from early in Stravinsky's career, in 1908 when he was 26. It had an appealing romantic grimness about it, though it lacked the appealing rhythms of Stravinsky's later works. I had less interest in Requiem Canticles, which (admittedly) would've been a lot better had someone not decided to project English-language subtitles of the lyrics onto the wall above the orchestra. Apparently Stravinsky lost interest in pagan sacrifice in middle age and returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, and from then on his music was mostly in service to Russian Orthodox Jesus.
The problem with the subtitles continued for Symphony of Psalms, but it was so good (particularly the first 3:14), when the frantic strolling (dare I say swinging?) rhythm of the repetitive pattern of oboe, harp strings, and piano, all under a shimmering layer of voice, produces something both gorgeous and unique (and with truly startling dynamics).
There was a 20 minute intermission, during which I got myself a plastic cup of white wine (it was a generous pour and only $5). I then met up with the others, and Sarah broke some news that was both sad and bad. For one thing, Bruce, the big-headed pit bull who had frequently passed into Ray and Nancy's life via Ray's brother Kim, had recently been euthanized. Apparently he'd lost control of his bladder and developed old-dog dementia. By then he was an elderly dog, so it was less of a tragedy than sad, end-of-an-era news. But Sarah also had a tragic tale to tell. It seems Buzzy, the often-problematic dog belonging to Nancy's sister Linda (now in Los Angeles), had been dogsat by some woman whose house contained various medicine bottles within easy each. Buzzy, as is his want, managed to get into a bottle of arthritis medication and eat the whole thing. The dogsitting woman knew that this had happened, but took no action other than to send an email to Linda. The result was that Buzzy's kidneys shut down and he became extremely ill, possibly requiring dialysis. Sarah wasn't clear what Buzzy's status is now, but we all agreed it was an outrage that anyone would let such a thing happen and not take heroic measures.
The Rite of Spring took up the second and final half of the concert. I'm very familiar with it, of course, and even have a performance of it on vinyl somewhere. But being there and seeing the musicians (most of them young Bard students) navigate their way through the jagged time signatures mostly without incident was a thing to behold. Having it fresh in my brain made me realize how much of all the music that followed owed a debt to it. It's hard, for example, to imagine there having ever been a Metallica were it not for the chunky "Dance of the Adolescents" in the first movement.
By the end of the concert, the weather outside had reverted to conditions more typical of January. By this time of year, we really should be getting lots of nice spring days. But this year is resisting. Perhaps we need to sacrifice a virgin.
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