guess this is what he was discussing with Michael Tilson-Thomas the other day...
http://www.sfsymphony.org/Buy-Tickets/2 ... -Tale.aspx
Dave
EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
Bummer. I have tickets for 1/15/15 for the SF Symphony. MTT's 70th birthday gala. I guess I could buy for this performance as well.
-
sweetest punch
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Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
http://www.elviscostello.com/#/news/mtt ... y-1618/681
(...)
Costello assumes the role of narrator in Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale), a theatrical tale of a Faustian bargain, written by
C.F. Ramuz, based on the Russian folk story The Runaway Soldier and the Devil. It is scored for just seven instruments (violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone and percussion), and told by three actors; a soldier, the Devil and a narrator. On his way home on leave, a Russian soldier Joseph encounters the Devil who convinces Joseph to exchange his violin for a magic book which promises to bring untold wealth in the future. Joseph eventually realizes this does not lead to happiness and strives to reverse the bargain.
(...)
(...)
Costello assumes the role of narrator in Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale), a theatrical tale of a Faustian bargain, written by
C.F. Ramuz, based on the Russian folk story The Runaway Soldier and the Devil. It is scored for just seven instruments (violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone and percussion), and told by three actors; a soldier, the Devil and a narrator. On his way home on leave, a Russian soldier Joseph encounters the Devil who convinces Joseph to exchange his violin for a magic book which promises to bring untold wealth in the future. Joseph eventually realizes this does not lead to happiness and strives to reverse the bargain.
(...)
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
http://www.mercurynews.com/music/ci_273 ... -francisco
Elvis Costello's latest adventure: Satanic role with San Francisco Symphony
By Richard Scheinin
rscheinin@mercurynews.com
01/12/2015
This weekend, Elvis Costello will talk about the devil at Davies Symphony Hall.
Have we got your attention?
It's something new, even for Costello, the rocker whose collaborations are as numerous as they are unpredictable. His latest engagement -- narrating composer Igor Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du soldat" ("The Soldier's Tale"), about a Faustian bargain -- will pair him with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, members of the San Francisco Symphony and the distinguished British actor Malcolm McDowell.
"It's an incredible amount of stuff that I've stumbled into," Costello says during a phone interview from his home in New York City, where he lives with his wife, Diana Krall, the jazz singer and pianist who is one of his many musical partners.
He has been crossing party lines for much of his career, working with Burt Bacharach and Paul McCartney, choreographer Twyla Tharp and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, Lucinda Williams and the Roots, Tony Bennett and George Jones, the Royal Danish Opera and the London Symphony Orchestra. Not to mention Tilson Thomas, whom he regards as a friend and mentor.
"It's really just wanting to hear different sounds," he explains, shrugging it all off. In 1976, as a punkish New Waver in London, he titled his first album "My Aim Is True," and that would seem to have remained his motto through the decades -- to stay true to his musical tastes and intuitions. He's smart and curious, fun to talk to, an outside-the-box character.
Which is why Costello, 60, will be at Davies Symphony Hall, narrating the story of a poor soldier who trades his violin -- his soul, basically -- to the devil, and loses everything that matters in the bargain. His bride, his freedom, a lucky medallion: All are lost in "L'Histoire," Stravinsky's musical setting of a Russian folk tale, which Costello will narrate three times in performances with Tilson Thomas, seven musicians and a small troupe of actors featuring McDowell as the Devil.
"He's a risk taker," Bacharach once said of Costello, with whom he recorded the album "Painted from Memory" in 1998. Their songs, about marriage and divorce, are urbane and literate, charting the course of emotional states, like good musical theater. "The guy simply won't be bound to one kind of music, nor should he be. He's always investigating because he can."
"Outside the box? What box?" says von Otter, the Swedish mezzo, when asked to describe Costello and their collaboration on the 2001 album "For the Stars." It treats compositions by Costello, McCartney, Bacharach, Tom Waits, Brian Wilson and others as a new breed of art song. Von Otter (who, coincidentally, performs her own sold-out recital Sunday in San Francisco at St. Mark's Lutheran Church), writes in an email, "If you have a brain and the right musical chips in it, then there are countless doors to open.... He has an energy and a curiosity that are hard to beat."
Still, Elvis Costello narrating a Russian folk tale set to Stravinsky's lean, rhythmically propulsive score from 1918, as interpreted by Tilson Thomas?
He laughs. "This is what I do for a living. I spill out a lot of words in rhythm. And I'm not even required to sing here -- which some people might be relieved to hear."
More than a decade ago, he was introduced to Tilson Thomas by Christopher Robertson, a recording industry executive. Costello was looking for help with "Il Sogno," his ballet score, which was inspired by Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It had been commissioned by a dance company in Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Unfortunately, Costello had "sat wincing" through early performances by a regional Italian orchestra. He compares that ensemble to the one in film director Federico Fellini's "Prova d'orchestra" ("Orchestra Rehearsal"), a comedy about an ensemble whose members go on strike against their conductor. Contributing to the confusion, Costello admits, was the fact of his being a novice at orchestral composition. His score contained "fundamental blunders."
A SYMPATHETIC MENTOR
Yet Tilson Thomas, a fan, invited Costello to his home to have a look at "Il Sogno" and make suggestions: "He took it seriously," Costello says, still surprised. "He didn't condescend to me that 'obviously you've made these very simple errors of communication that you wouldn't have made had you been properly trained.' Instead he'd say, 'Well, what's happening in these bars over here? And what do you intend to happen over there?'
"And he's great company. He sat me down and told me stories about conducting gigantic Mahler symphonies and about working with James Brown. For me, Michael took on the role of a mentor in the proper sense, which doesn't really exist in rock 'n' roll. You usually want to do down" -- as in, get the better of -- "the person who came before you."
In the end, the hour-long, 200-page score came off snazzily, with misty atmospherics and real spirit. You can hear Costllo's love of Debussy's refinement and Stravinsky's puckishness in "Il Sogno." It has good, solid Costello-ish melodies, too.
Tilson Thomas, who recorded the piece with the London Symphony Orchestra, was impressed. In 2004, after the album's release on the Deutsche Grammophon label, he spoke to this writer about Costello's "very musical mind." He said, "And the thing that most impressed me is that he was actually writing this piece with a pencil and really trying to understand every note and how it all works. I really liked his whole feeling of curiosity about music.... It's quite far out there in terms of the tonalities. It's pastel-colored, and really quite remarkable."
Born Declan Patrick MacManus, Costello grew up in London. His father, Ross MacManus, "was a bebop trumpet player before he became a dance band singer," says Costello. "Like a lot of people, he couldn't make a living playing the music he loved. But he became a singer, and he had a fairly successful career in the dance hall and on the radio. So that exposed me to a lot of music that my pocket full of change couldn't buy."
Ross MacManus even sang some of Bacharach's songs. You can draw the connection, Costello says.
His mother, Lilian, a jazz fan, worked in a record shop and sold "smuggled copies" -- brought to her by a merchant seaman friend -- of albums by American bebop pianist Lennie Tristano. Some featured saxophonist Lee Konitz -- who recorded a gorgeously pared down, dry martini solo on Costello's "Someone Took the Words Away," a love song on his 2003 album "North."
At the recording session, he asked Konitz to sign the song's lead sheet for his mother: "He wrote, 'Lilian. Thank you. Lee.' Ever economical! It was a lovely connection."
A CLASSICAL CONNECTION
Growing up, Costello also was taken to classical concerts. A family friend who worked for a record company gave him classical EPs -- "Grieg, Mozart, the Brandenburg Concertos" -- that he alternated with Tristano and a variety of other music on the family record player. "I grew up listening to all those records," he says. "I didn't understand them when I was a kid, but there's something about having records. It's like having books on a shelf. You might not understand every word of them, but perhaps in time you will. I try to do something like this with my young sons, showing them the Marx Brothers and old black and white films.... I think it all accumulates."
The point is that by the time Costello released his album "Imperial Bedroom" in 1983, some of his fans may have been surprised by his seemingly new fascination with classic popular song-craft -- the craftsmanship of Cole Porter, say, or Rodgers and Hart. But Costello knew that his fascination was deep-seated. (He had even recorded "My Funny Valentine" as the B-side of a single in 1978.)
He still didn't know how to notate music. But by the time of his 1993 collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet -- the British string quartet with which he recorded "The Juliet Letters" -- that was changing. A composer named Michael McGlynn helped push him through his mental block, and Costello, within six months, was writing out full-part arrangements.
ADDICTED TO MUSIC
He had been immersing himself in London's classical music scene, too, sometimes going out five or six nights a week. There was Berlioz: He heard von Otter in the opera "The Damnation of Faust." There was Brahms: "I guess it was like an addiction. It got to be like I had to hear the next installment. There was a German pianist playing every piece by Brahms; I went every night." There was Mozart: "wildly great versions with symphony orchestras."
Mozart "touched his heart" and still does: "How did he write those tunes? Because at some level, that's what they are, tunes."
In recent years, Costello has sung his own tunes with full symphonic backing in major concert halls, often using his own arrangements for 50 or more musicians. When he joins Tilson Thomas on stage this weekend, he will be adding to this history.
"You've got to press on for the beauty," he says. "I've stood in front of some of the best orchestras in the world, including the San Francisco Symphony, and I know what it feels like to be inside that body of sound. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.... So this is another one of those magical things. It's a magical experience. Let's do it right."
Contact Richard Scheinin at 408-920-5069, read his stories and reviews at www.mercurynews.com/richard-scheinin and follow him at www.twitter.com/richardscheinin.
Elvis Costello AND THE San francisco symphony
"L'Histoire du soldat" by Stravinsky, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, narrated by Costello, with Malcolm McDowell as the Devil; also on the program, composer John Adams conducts his "Grand Pianola Music"When: 6:30 p.m. Jan. 16, 8 p.m. Jan. 17, 2 p.m. Jan. 18
Where: Davies Symphony Hall
Tickets: $15-$158; 415-864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org
Online: To watch video of Elvis Costello and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter on "The Late Show With David Letterman," go to www.mercurynews.com/entertainment.
Elvis Costello's latest adventure: Satanic role with San Francisco Symphony
By Richard Scheinin
rscheinin@mercurynews.com
01/12/2015
This weekend, Elvis Costello will talk about the devil at Davies Symphony Hall.
Have we got your attention?
It's something new, even for Costello, the rocker whose collaborations are as numerous as they are unpredictable. His latest engagement -- narrating composer Igor Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du soldat" ("The Soldier's Tale"), about a Faustian bargain -- will pair him with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, members of the San Francisco Symphony and the distinguished British actor Malcolm McDowell.
"It's an incredible amount of stuff that I've stumbled into," Costello says during a phone interview from his home in New York City, where he lives with his wife, Diana Krall, the jazz singer and pianist who is one of his many musical partners.
He has been crossing party lines for much of his career, working with Burt Bacharach and Paul McCartney, choreographer Twyla Tharp and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, Lucinda Williams and the Roots, Tony Bennett and George Jones, the Royal Danish Opera and the London Symphony Orchestra. Not to mention Tilson Thomas, whom he regards as a friend and mentor.
"It's really just wanting to hear different sounds," he explains, shrugging it all off. In 1976, as a punkish New Waver in London, he titled his first album "My Aim Is True," and that would seem to have remained his motto through the decades -- to stay true to his musical tastes and intuitions. He's smart and curious, fun to talk to, an outside-the-box character.
Which is why Costello, 60, will be at Davies Symphony Hall, narrating the story of a poor soldier who trades his violin -- his soul, basically -- to the devil, and loses everything that matters in the bargain. His bride, his freedom, a lucky medallion: All are lost in "L'Histoire," Stravinsky's musical setting of a Russian folk tale, which Costello will narrate three times in performances with Tilson Thomas, seven musicians and a small troupe of actors featuring McDowell as the Devil.
"He's a risk taker," Bacharach once said of Costello, with whom he recorded the album "Painted from Memory" in 1998. Their songs, about marriage and divorce, are urbane and literate, charting the course of emotional states, like good musical theater. "The guy simply won't be bound to one kind of music, nor should he be. He's always investigating because he can."
"Outside the box? What box?" says von Otter, the Swedish mezzo, when asked to describe Costello and their collaboration on the 2001 album "For the Stars." It treats compositions by Costello, McCartney, Bacharach, Tom Waits, Brian Wilson and others as a new breed of art song. Von Otter (who, coincidentally, performs her own sold-out recital Sunday in San Francisco at St. Mark's Lutheran Church), writes in an email, "If you have a brain and the right musical chips in it, then there are countless doors to open.... He has an energy and a curiosity that are hard to beat."
Still, Elvis Costello narrating a Russian folk tale set to Stravinsky's lean, rhythmically propulsive score from 1918, as interpreted by Tilson Thomas?
He laughs. "This is what I do for a living. I spill out a lot of words in rhythm. And I'm not even required to sing here -- which some people might be relieved to hear."
More than a decade ago, he was introduced to Tilson Thomas by Christopher Robertson, a recording industry executive. Costello was looking for help with "Il Sogno," his ballet score, which was inspired by Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It had been commissioned by a dance company in Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Unfortunately, Costello had "sat wincing" through early performances by a regional Italian orchestra. He compares that ensemble to the one in film director Federico Fellini's "Prova d'orchestra" ("Orchestra Rehearsal"), a comedy about an ensemble whose members go on strike against their conductor. Contributing to the confusion, Costello admits, was the fact of his being a novice at orchestral composition. His score contained "fundamental blunders."
A SYMPATHETIC MENTOR
Yet Tilson Thomas, a fan, invited Costello to his home to have a look at "Il Sogno" and make suggestions: "He took it seriously," Costello says, still surprised. "He didn't condescend to me that 'obviously you've made these very simple errors of communication that you wouldn't have made had you been properly trained.' Instead he'd say, 'Well, what's happening in these bars over here? And what do you intend to happen over there?'
"And he's great company. He sat me down and told me stories about conducting gigantic Mahler symphonies and about working with James Brown. For me, Michael took on the role of a mentor in the proper sense, which doesn't really exist in rock 'n' roll. You usually want to do down" -- as in, get the better of -- "the person who came before you."
In the end, the hour-long, 200-page score came off snazzily, with misty atmospherics and real spirit. You can hear Costllo's love of Debussy's refinement and Stravinsky's puckishness in "Il Sogno." It has good, solid Costello-ish melodies, too.
Tilson Thomas, who recorded the piece with the London Symphony Orchestra, was impressed. In 2004, after the album's release on the Deutsche Grammophon label, he spoke to this writer about Costello's "very musical mind." He said, "And the thing that most impressed me is that he was actually writing this piece with a pencil and really trying to understand every note and how it all works. I really liked his whole feeling of curiosity about music.... It's quite far out there in terms of the tonalities. It's pastel-colored, and really quite remarkable."
Born Declan Patrick MacManus, Costello grew up in London. His father, Ross MacManus, "was a bebop trumpet player before he became a dance band singer," says Costello. "Like a lot of people, he couldn't make a living playing the music he loved. But he became a singer, and he had a fairly successful career in the dance hall and on the radio. So that exposed me to a lot of music that my pocket full of change couldn't buy."
Ross MacManus even sang some of Bacharach's songs. You can draw the connection, Costello says.
His mother, Lilian, a jazz fan, worked in a record shop and sold "smuggled copies" -- brought to her by a merchant seaman friend -- of albums by American bebop pianist Lennie Tristano. Some featured saxophonist Lee Konitz -- who recorded a gorgeously pared down, dry martini solo on Costello's "Someone Took the Words Away," a love song on his 2003 album "North."
At the recording session, he asked Konitz to sign the song's lead sheet for his mother: "He wrote, 'Lilian. Thank you. Lee.' Ever economical! It was a lovely connection."
A CLASSICAL CONNECTION
Growing up, Costello also was taken to classical concerts. A family friend who worked for a record company gave him classical EPs -- "Grieg, Mozart, the Brandenburg Concertos" -- that he alternated with Tristano and a variety of other music on the family record player. "I grew up listening to all those records," he says. "I didn't understand them when I was a kid, but there's something about having records. It's like having books on a shelf. You might not understand every word of them, but perhaps in time you will. I try to do something like this with my young sons, showing them the Marx Brothers and old black and white films.... I think it all accumulates."
The point is that by the time Costello released his album "Imperial Bedroom" in 1983, some of his fans may have been surprised by his seemingly new fascination with classic popular song-craft -- the craftsmanship of Cole Porter, say, or Rodgers and Hart. But Costello knew that his fascination was deep-seated. (He had even recorded "My Funny Valentine" as the B-side of a single in 1978.)
He still didn't know how to notate music. But by the time of his 1993 collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet -- the British string quartet with which he recorded "The Juliet Letters" -- that was changing. A composer named Michael McGlynn helped push him through his mental block, and Costello, within six months, was writing out full-part arrangements.
ADDICTED TO MUSIC
He had been immersing himself in London's classical music scene, too, sometimes going out five or six nights a week. There was Berlioz: He heard von Otter in the opera "The Damnation of Faust." There was Brahms: "I guess it was like an addiction. It got to be like I had to hear the next installment. There was a German pianist playing every piece by Brahms; I went every night." There was Mozart: "wildly great versions with symphony orchestras."
Mozart "touched his heart" and still does: "How did he write those tunes? Because at some level, that's what they are, tunes."
In recent years, Costello has sung his own tunes with full symphonic backing in major concert halls, often using his own arrangements for 50 or more musicians. When he joins Tilson Thomas on stage this weekend, he will be adding to this history.
"You've got to press on for the beauty," he says. "I've stood in front of some of the best orchestras in the world, including the San Francisco Symphony, and I know what it feels like to be inside that body of sound. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.... So this is another one of those magical things. It's a magical experience. Let's do it right."
Contact Richard Scheinin at 408-920-5069, read his stories and reviews at www.mercurynews.com/richard-scheinin and follow him at www.twitter.com/richardscheinin.
Elvis Costello AND THE San francisco symphony
"L'Histoire du soldat" by Stravinsky, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, narrated by Costello, with Malcolm McDowell as the Devil; also on the program, composer John Adams conducts his "Grand Pianola Music"When: 6:30 p.m. Jan. 16, 8 p.m. Jan. 17, 2 p.m. Jan. 18
Where: Davies Symphony Hall
Tickets: $15-$158; 415-864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org
Online: To watch video of Elvis Costello and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter on "The Late Show With David Letterman," go to www.mercurynews.com/entertainment.
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
I am going to this on Friday. Will also be at the Symphony Hall on Thursday as well. Looking forward. This will be followed up by Sketchfest - a comedy fest. SF rules! Sorry, you know I slack on reviews, but do provide other commentary that no one cares about or reads... so, sorry, don't expect a posting from me other than a newspaper review. I'm lame. Later. Happy 2015 to everyone.
-
sweetest punch
- Posts: 5983
- Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:49 am
- Location: Belgium
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/sf ... id=3339904
Elvis Costello is Still Craving Challenges — Like Stravinsky
Elvis Costello is far too big and still too disgruntled to fit into a sound bite.
Which is good, because the chip remaining on the singer, songwriter, composer, and guitar player's tuneful shoulders is a better semi-conductor than silicon. Edgy energy has electrified his 35-plus years of music-making and tilted Costello along a career that includes induction (with The Attractions) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003; writing more than 500 original songs in multiple musical genres; collaborating with, among others, Burt Bacharach, The Brodsky Quartet, Paul McCartney, jazz master Allen Toussaint, choreographer Twyla Tharp and his wife, jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall; winning Oscar and Grammy nominations and numerous industry awards. And, next week, an upcoming performance with Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Costello will appear as The Narrator in Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier's Tale), Jan. 16-18 at Davies Symphony Hall. Actor Malcolm McDowell will play The Devil. Also on the program, John Adams will conduct his work Grand Pianola Music with pianists Orli Shaham and Marc-André Hamelin and vocalists Synergy Vocals.
It's not the first time Costello and Tilson Thomas' paths have crossed. In 2002, Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony Orchestra recorded Costello's full length Symphonic work, Il Sogno, on Deutsche Grammophon. Costello also appeared with the SFSO in his better-known capacity as a singer/songwriter/guitarist in 2006.
In an interview with SF Weekly one week before he returns to celebrate Tilson Thomas' 70th birthday (a special Jan. 15 performance hints at "surprise guests" that one can imagine might include Costello), he recalled the start of their friendship.
"Michael was asked to look at a ballet score I wrote," Costello says. "It didn't do what orchestral pieces generally do. It was an outline of episodic elements. I thought he'd toss it out of the window in 10 minutes."
Costello says he'd learned to notate music on an as-needed basis. Given projects that required it because the performers were classically trained, he'd sat down with pencil in hand — no trick-writing with software and an electric keyboard, or relying on his remarkable "play it by ear" history. "I learned to write music down for chamber groups and jazz orchestras," he says. "When I think I'm not equipped [with the knowledge or ability to handle a given project], I get the skills."
Instead of tossing his score aside, Tilson Thomas gave it credence by asking the then-fledgling classical composer specific questions, Costello says.
"He asked why I turned certain corners. The problem [with the score] was that if you took away the dancing action, it seemed static, so I rewrote large sections. He just circled places in the score; it was a truly creative critique."
Costello values Tilson Thomas's deep, nuanced approach. "He's a wonderful communicator," says Costello. "He has an opinion that's worth listening to for any piece of music."
Preparing for his turn as The Narrator, Costello says language, pauses, emphasis on specific words, and synchronicity with the other actors and musicians are all key to a convincing performance. Because the tale of a Faustian bargain, written by C.F. Ramuz and based on a Russian folk story, is a translation from its original language to English, he suggests the flow must be particularly well-modulated.
"[As a singer] I practice delivering a lot of syllables in time all the time. With this piece, I wait for cues and the nuances of the music, but mostly, I'm relying on Michael's direction."
Calling himself "the wild card" relative to McDowell's established acting chops, he says, "I imagine we'll rehearse, we won't be just going up there and sketching it through."
Having come off a recent Hollywood Bowl show that allowed only 18 minutes of rehearsal for a six-minute set, Costello promises that even the few hair-raising moments that happen with professionals will be kept to a minimum at Davies Hall because of the man at the center: "It's Michael," he says.
But also, it's Costello. Asked if he's ever been frightened by a project, he bristles at the idea, then describes what's at the heart of his music.
"I don't think the things I find myself doing involve risk. If you're not daunted by what you're doing, you're doing the wrong thing. Rock music can be just as challenging as anything. [As for collaborations], I've felt there's always been an invitation from someone. They say, 'Would you like to do this?' and I think, 'What do I have to lose?' I don't let what other people will think determine what I do. That's why I got into music in the first place, to make my own statement."
Collaborations have given him close to 400 songs and a trip to what he calls "the edges of music," where the mystery of human performance lights up a show with danger. He says the essential, forward thrust keeps music from becoming a tired ritual.
"We've all been in a concert hall and sensed the orchestra is playing out of obligation, but I don't think that happens in San Francisco very often," he says.
And it's unlikely to occur when Costello takes his no-holds philosophy onstage, looking for danger and blind to risk.
"You miss so many great experiences if you say 'No,'" he insists. "I don't agonize about how it might go wrong. There's so much more to be had from jumping in than from sitting and being afraid of it or worrying what other people will say about you."
Elvis Costello is Still Craving Challenges — Like Stravinsky
Elvis Costello is far too big and still too disgruntled to fit into a sound bite.
Which is good, because the chip remaining on the singer, songwriter, composer, and guitar player's tuneful shoulders is a better semi-conductor than silicon. Edgy energy has electrified his 35-plus years of music-making and tilted Costello along a career that includes induction (with The Attractions) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003; writing more than 500 original songs in multiple musical genres; collaborating with, among others, Burt Bacharach, The Brodsky Quartet, Paul McCartney, jazz master Allen Toussaint, choreographer Twyla Tharp and his wife, jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall; winning Oscar and Grammy nominations and numerous industry awards. And, next week, an upcoming performance with Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Costello will appear as The Narrator in Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier's Tale), Jan. 16-18 at Davies Symphony Hall. Actor Malcolm McDowell will play The Devil. Also on the program, John Adams will conduct his work Grand Pianola Music with pianists Orli Shaham and Marc-André Hamelin and vocalists Synergy Vocals.
It's not the first time Costello and Tilson Thomas' paths have crossed. In 2002, Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony Orchestra recorded Costello's full length Symphonic work, Il Sogno, on Deutsche Grammophon. Costello also appeared with the SFSO in his better-known capacity as a singer/songwriter/guitarist in 2006.
In an interview with SF Weekly one week before he returns to celebrate Tilson Thomas' 70th birthday (a special Jan. 15 performance hints at "surprise guests" that one can imagine might include Costello), he recalled the start of their friendship.
"Michael was asked to look at a ballet score I wrote," Costello says. "It didn't do what orchestral pieces generally do. It was an outline of episodic elements. I thought he'd toss it out of the window in 10 minutes."
Costello says he'd learned to notate music on an as-needed basis. Given projects that required it because the performers were classically trained, he'd sat down with pencil in hand — no trick-writing with software and an electric keyboard, or relying on his remarkable "play it by ear" history. "I learned to write music down for chamber groups and jazz orchestras," he says. "When I think I'm not equipped [with the knowledge or ability to handle a given project], I get the skills."
Instead of tossing his score aside, Tilson Thomas gave it credence by asking the then-fledgling classical composer specific questions, Costello says.
"He asked why I turned certain corners. The problem [with the score] was that if you took away the dancing action, it seemed static, so I rewrote large sections. He just circled places in the score; it was a truly creative critique."
Costello values Tilson Thomas's deep, nuanced approach. "He's a wonderful communicator," says Costello. "He has an opinion that's worth listening to for any piece of music."
Preparing for his turn as The Narrator, Costello says language, pauses, emphasis on specific words, and synchronicity with the other actors and musicians are all key to a convincing performance. Because the tale of a Faustian bargain, written by C.F. Ramuz and based on a Russian folk story, is a translation from its original language to English, he suggests the flow must be particularly well-modulated.
"[As a singer] I practice delivering a lot of syllables in time all the time. With this piece, I wait for cues and the nuances of the music, but mostly, I'm relying on Michael's direction."
Calling himself "the wild card" relative to McDowell's established acting chops, he says, "I imagine we'll rehearse, we won't be just going up there and sketching it through."
Having come off a recent Hollywood Bowl show that allowed only 18 minutes of rehearsal for a six-minute set, Costello promises that even the few hair-raising moments that happen with professionals will be kept to a minimum at Davies Hall because of the man at the center: "It's Michael," he says.
But also, it's Costello. Asked if he's ever been frightened by a project, he bristles at the idea, then describes what's at the heart of his music.
"I don't think the things I find myself doing involve risk. If you're not daunted by what you're doing, you're doing the wrong thing. Rock music can be just as challenging as anything. [As for collaborations], I've felt there's always been an invitation from someone. They say, 'Would you like to do this?' and I think, 'What do I have to lose?' I don't let what other people will think determine what I do. That's why I got into music in the first place, to make my own statement."
Collaborations have given him close to 400 songs and a trip to what he calls "the edges of music," where the mystery of human performance lights up a show with danger. He says the essential, forward thrust keeps music from becoming a tired ritual.
"We've all been in a concert hall and sensed the orchestra is playing out of obligation, but I don't think that happens in San Francisco very often," he says.
And it's unlikely to occur when Costello takes his no-holds philosophy onstage, looking for danger and blind to risk.
"You miss so many great experiences if you say 'No,'" he insists. "I don't agonize about how it might go wrong. There's so much more to be had from jumping in than from sitting and being afraid of it or worrying what other people will say about you."
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
As teased in this article, EC appeared at last night's show to perform The Beatles' "Birthday" with Phil Lesh, Boz Scaggs, and Lars Ulrich.sweetest punch wrote:In an interview with SF Weekly one week before he returns to celebrate Tilson Thomas' 70th birthday (a special Jan. 15 performance hints at "surprise guests" that one can imagine might include Costello)
From Twitter:
Surprise, Surprise: Elvis Costello, Boz Scaggs, Phil Lesh singing Beatles' "Birthday" to MTT at his 70th bday bash. (I blew the photo.)
@SFSymphony is filled w surprises tonight for #MTT70! @ElvisCostello et al singing happy birthday. Love it!
Did Elvis Costello, Phil Lesh, Boz Scaggs, and Lars Ulrich just wish Michael Tilson Thomas happy birthday Beatles style???#MTT70
phil lesh, boz skaggs, elvis costello sing happy 70th to michael tilson thomas. http://instagram.com/p/x5_0NclyBR/
At MTT bday party Beatles cover band had Lars Ulrich drums Boz Scaggs, Elvis Costello on vocals and Phil Lesh on bass
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sulky lad
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Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
Elvis sans hat too !!
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2015/01/16/sup ... on-thomas/
Lars Ulrich, Phil Lesh, Elvis Costello and Boz Scaggs (L-R) perform at Davies Symphony Hall. (Photo: © Moanalani Jeffrey Photography)
Supergroup of Elvis Costello, Lars Ulrich, Boz Scaggs and Phil Lesh Salutes Michael Tilson Thomas
by Gabe Meline
JAN. 16, 2015
Local treasure Michael Tilson Thomas celebrated his 70th birthday last night at Davies Symphony Hall, a much-buzzed-about party that turned up surprise guests Yo-Yo Ma (issuing the “turn off your cell phones” announcement over the P.A.) and President Obama (in a recorded message congratulating the conductor and musical director).
But the loudest surprise turned out to be a one-night-only supergroup of Elvis Costello, Lars Ulrich from Metallica, Boz Scaggs and the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh, who took the stage right before intermission to perform—what else?—the Beatles’ “Birthday.” Karl Sevareid and Drew Zingg rounded out the band.
The night also included Liszt’s wild Hexameron, for orchestra and six (!) grand pianos, encores of the William Tell and Candide overtures, characters from Beach Blanket Babylon, hundreds of blue balloons and a slideshow featuring photos of Tilson Thomas over the years (in one young pose, resembling a dead ringer for Alfred E. Neuman).
But it was the all-star band that had everyone talking. Here’s to a surprise show at Terrapin Crossroads in the near future! Whaddya say, guys?
Lars Ulrich, Phil Lesh, Elvis Costello and Boz Scaggs (L-R) perform at Davies Symphony Hall. (Photo: © Moanalani Jeffrey Photography)
Supergroup of Elvis Costello, Lars Ulrich, Boz Scaggs and Phil Lesh Salutes Michael Tilson Thomas
by Gabe Meline
JAN. 16, 2015
Local treasure Michael Tilson Thomas celebrated his 70th birthday last night at Davies Symphony Hall, a much-buzzed-about party that turned up surprise guests Yo-Yo Ma (issuing the “turn off your cell phones” announcement over the P.A.) and President Obama (in a recorded message congratulating the conductor and musical director).
But the loudest surprise turned out to be a one-night-only supergroup of Elvis Costello, Lars Ulrich from Metallica, Boz Scaggs and the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh, who took the stage right before intermission to perform—what else?—the Beatles’ “Birthday.” Karl Sevareid and Drew Zingg rounded out the band.
The night also included Liszt’s wild Hexameron, for orchestra and six (!) grand pianos, encores of the William Tell and Candide overtures, characters from Beach Blanket Babylon, hundreds of blue balloons and a slideshow featuring photos of Tilson Thomas over the years (in one young pose, resembling a dead ringer for Alfred E. Neuman).
But it was the all-star band that had everyone talking. Here’s to a surprise show at Terrapin Crossroads in the near future! Whaddya say, guys?
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bronxapostle
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Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
hopw aomwonw got the video or audio PLEASE!
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
Granted, I'd probably give a positive review of Elvis hawking juicers at Tesco, but it was fun to see him, Malcolm McDowell and Nick Gabriel 's spoken word performance (though MTT gave them a run for their money as King). At first, Elvis' part was a little stilted, but he's eventually given the freedom to make the part his own. His best moment was as a peddler hawking his wares. The biggest difficulty for him was weathering the instrumental parts with nothing to do. He looked as if he'd learned how to pose by studying last Sunday's Target circular.
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
http://www.examiner.com/article/davies- ... ams-pieces
Davies provides a challenging setting for signature Stravinsky and Adams pieces
Stephen Smoliar
January 17, 2015
Following up on the festivities of the MTT 70th Birthday Celebration on Thursday night, the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) subscription season got back down to business last night in Davies Symphony Hall. Actually, most of the musicians were able to take a bit of time off, since the resources for last night’s program were reduced practically to the level of chamber music. The major work on the program, Igor Stravinsky’s 1918 “Histoire du soldat” (soldier’s tale) was conceived as a production for seven musicians and three actors, all of whom would be able to ride in the back of a truck with instruments, costumes, and sets. For each performance the truck space could also serve as the stage. This piece was performed after the intermission, which was preceded only by John Adams’ “Grand Pianola Music.” While the score requires two pianos, three vocalists, and a wide variety of percussion instruments managed by three players, the rest of the ensemble amounts to a reduced chamber orchestra of winds and brass.
As I observed last month, this was the second opportunity of the season for San Franciscans to experience “Histoire du soldat” performed in its entirety. The first took place in November when the musicians were seven faculty members of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), six of whom were also SFS members; and the three actors were replaced by SFCM President David Stull, who read the entire English translation of Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz’ text by Michael Flanders and Kitty Black. Last night Principal Bass Scott Pingel and Principal Trombone Timothy Higgins were the two musicians who participated in both performances. The other five were all leaders of their respective sections, Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik (violin), Carey Bell (clarinet), Stephen Paulson (bassoon), Mark Inouye (trumpet), and Jacob Nissly (percussion). The text (which seems to have taken Flanders-Black as a point of departure and then added some modifications) was read (with minimal acting) by Elvis Costello (narrator), Malcolm McDowell (The Devil), and Nick Gabriel (The Soldier). Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) conducted and occasionally provided an extra voice. (At SFCM the musicians were led by violinist Ian Swensen.)
It would be fair to say that this piece was conceived both by and for those who had taken refuge in Switzerland to wait out the First World War. The minimal number of performers probably played to minimal audiences, trying to make ends meet by passing the hat at the end of the show. Written in wartime, Ramuz’ text was more that a little didactic, lacking the sharp edges of a play by Bertolt Brecht but sharing with Brecht a tendency to belabor the main points. Under the circumstances, however, duration was probably not a major problem. Those in the audience did not have much to do with themselves and probably appreciated this sustained break from the dreariness of life in wartime.
In this context Davies was quite a departure from the original setting. The problem, however, was that the virtues of the production all resided in its minimality. All of the musicians, of course, knew how to project into the cavernous Davies space; and there was nothing to complain about in their interpretation of Stravinsky’s score. On the other hand the actors required amplification, and there was something more than a little out of place in having a rock star for one part and a film and television star for another. Everything was just a little too polished for its own good, and Ramuz’ excessive duration felt less like escape and more like tedium.
Davies was not particularly kind to “Grand Pianola Music,” which Adams himself conducted, either. This is deliberately obstreperous music, whose outrageousness emerges from dueling pianos, crooning vocalists, an oafishly intrusive bass drum, and radical shifts in the dynamics for the winds and brass. I have been fortunate enough to listen to this music in two previous performance spaces, the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and Royce Hall on the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles. In both of those spaces I felt a closeness to the music that quickly found its way to my funny-bone, while even the Premium Orchestra seats in Davies felt just too remote from all that action going on up on stage. As a result Adams’ rhetorical skill in shock value was disappointingly blunted, even with the pianos managed so well by Marc-André Hamelin and Orli Shaham and the soothingly ironic wordless vocals of Micaela Haslam, Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, and Heather Cairncross.
It may also be that “Grand Pianola Music” was an unwitting casualty of a poor programming decision. On those two prior listening occasions, it was the last piece to be performed. In both cases it was preceded by two highly serious compositions given readings that were as highly polished as they were intense. Up until the end, the program had set an almost imposing intellectual tone. “Grand Pianola Music” then hit the stage with all the whirling energy of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil, blowing away all the cobwebs of the preceding seriousness. This provoked one of the most negative reactions I had ever encountered in New York; but, as far as I was concerned, the music was a welcome relief from overindulgence in the cerebral.
While I appreciate the logic behind choosing “Grand Pianola Music” to precede, rather than follow, the large-scale Stravinsky production, I suspect that the music is best appreciated for its delightful capacity to provide a really upbeat sense of an ending.
Davies provides a challenging setting for signature Stravinsky and Adams pieces
Stephen Smoliar
January 17, 2015
Following up on the festivities of the MTT 70th Birthday Celebration on Thursday night, the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) subscription season got back down to business last night in Davies Symphony Hall. Actually, most of the musicians were able to take a bit of time off, since the resources for last night’s program were reduced practically to the level of chamber music. The major work on the program, Igor Stravinsky’s 1918 “Histoire du soldat” (soldier’s tale) was conceived as a production for seven musicians and three actors, all of whom would be able to ride in the back of a truck with instruments, costumes, and sets. For each performance the truck space could also serve as the stage. This piece was performed after the intermission, which was preceded only by John Adams’ “Grand Pianola Music.” While the score requires two pianos, three vocalists, and a wide variety of percussion instruments managed by three players, the rest of the ensemble amounts to a reduced chamber orchestra of winds and brass.
As I observed last month, this was the second opportunity of the season for San Franciscans to experience “Histoire du soldat” performed in its entirety. The first took place in November when the musicians were seven faculty members of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), six of whom were also SFS members; and the three actors were replaced by SFCM President David Stull, who read the entire English translation of Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz’ text by Michael Flanders and Kitty Black. Last night Principal Bass Scott Pingel and Principal Trombone Timothy Higgins were the two musicians who participated in both performances. The other five were all leaders of their respective sections, Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik (violin), Carey Bell (clarinet), Stephen Paulson (bassoon), Mark Inouye (trumpet), and Jacob Nissly (percussion). The text (which seems to have taken Flanders-Black as a point of departure and then added some modifications) was read (with minimal acting) by Elvis Costello (narrator), Malcolm McDowell (The Devil), and Nick Gabriel (The Soldier). Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) conducted and occasionally provided an extra voice. (At SFCM the musicians were led by violinist Ian Swensen.)
It would be fair to say that this piece was conceived both by and for those who had taken refuge in Switzerland to wait out the First World War. The minimal number of performers probably played to minimal audiences, trying to make ends meet by passing the hat at the end of the show. Written in wartime, Ramuz’ text was more that a little didactic, lacking the sharp edges of a play by Bertolt Brecht but sharing with Brecht a tendency to belabor the main points. Under the circumstances, however, duration was probably not a major problem. Those in the audience did not have much to do with themselves and probably appreciated this sustained break from the dreariness of life in wartime.
In this context Davies was quite a departure from the original setting. The problem, however, was that the virtues of the production all resided in its minimality. All of the musicians, of course, knew how to project into the cavernous Davies space; and there was nothing to complain about in their interpretation of Stravinsky’s score. On the other hand the actors required amplification, and there was something more than a little out of place in having a rock star for one part and a film and television star for another. Everything was just a little too polished for its own good, and Ramuz’ excessive duration felt less like escape and more like tedium.
Davies was not particularly kind to “Grand Pianola Music,” which Adams himself conducted, either. This is deliberately obstreperous music, whose outrageousness emerges from dueling pianos, crooning vocalists, an oafishly intrusive bass drum, and radical shifts in the dynamics for the winds and brass. I have been fortunate enough to listen to this music in two previous performance spaces, the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and Royce Hall on the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles. In both of those spaces I felt a closeness to the music that quickly found its way to my funny-bone, while even the Premium Orchestra seats in Davies felt just too remote from all that action going on up on stage. As a result Adams’ rhetorical skill in shock value was disappointingly blunted, even with the pianos managed so well by Marc-André Hamelin and Orli Shaham and the soothingly ironic wordless vocals of Micaela Haslam, Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, and Heather Cairncross.
It may also be that “Grand Pianola Music” was an unwitting casualty of a poor programming decision. On those two prior listening occasions, it was the last piece to be performed. In both cases it was preceded by two highly serious compositions given readings that were as highly polished as they were intense. Up until the end, the program had set an almost imposing intellectual tone. “Grand Pianola Music” then hit the stage with all the whirling energy of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil, blowing away all the cobwebs of the preceding seriousness. This provoked one of the most negative reactions I had ever encountered in New York; but, as far as I was concerned, the music was a welcome relief from overindulgence in the cerebral.
While I appreciate the logic behind choosing “Grand Pianola Music” to precede, rather than follow, the large-scale Stravinsky production, I suspect that the music is best appreciated for its delightful capacity to provide a really upbeat sense of an ending.
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
From beginning to end, it was a outstanding night of entertainment. The Grand Pianola Music piece gave my ears a work out. I seriously thought my ears opened in ways they never have before. Killer.
A Soldier's Tale was fabulous. Elvis was awesome. All actors were great. The violin player blowed my mind. The piece seems to be appropriate for San Francisco, since the town is going through such a change (cranes are now part of the cityscape, empty store fronts are everywhere because greedy landlords/owners are raising rents that local businesses can't afford it and are thus pushed out. And artists/musicians - even members of the orchestra, I assume, are really feeling the squeeze.)
The only thing I would have changed for A Soldier's Tale is to have Ed Lee (mayor of SF) play the devil. Seems like he would be the best fit for it since he has sold out the town. That guy... I really don't like that guy.
Anyhow, great event... Feeling so good after two nights of incredible music... Damn, I love this town. It's too bad I don't know how long I can stay before I am pushed out. Heading out to take in the beauty of what seems to be a "gated/elite" city.
A Soldier's Tale was fabulous. Elvis was awesome. All actors were great. The violin player blowed my mind. The piece seems to be appropriate for San Francisco, since the town is going through such a change (cranes are now part of the cityscape, empty store fronts are everywhere because greedy landlords/owners are raising rents that local businesses can't afford it and are thus pushed out. And artists/musicians - even members of the orchestra, I assume, are really feeling the squeeze.)
The only thing I would have changed for A Soldier's Tale is to have Ed Lee (mayor of SF) play the devil. Seems like he would be the best fit for it since he has sold out the town. That guy... I really don't like that guy.
Anyhow, great event... Feeling so good after two nights of incredible music... Damn, I love this town. It's too bad I don't know how long I can stay before I am pushed out. Heading out to take in the beauty of what seems to be a "gated/elite" city.
Last edited by MOJO on Sat Jan 17, 2015 4:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
Trying to upload pix but the files are too large. Also, my laptop was stolen last night, so I am left with my iPhone. I will set up my new laptop and will try to upload later. Peace.
Oh by the way, EC got an extra special applause. Well deserved. Later
Oh by the way, EC got an extra special applause. Well deserved. Later
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And No Coffee Table
- Posts: 3524
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Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
http://www.sfgate.com/music/article/SF- ... 022946.php
SF Symphony review: Elvis Costello and Stravinsky make a mismatch
By Joshua Kosman Published 4:10 pm, Saturday, January 17, 2015
Once a person becomes sufficiently famous and accomplished, the invitations start rolling in from far and wide - including projects that have nothing to do with their particular talents. You can spend nearly four decades, for instance, creating some of the most intricate, inventive and beautiful pop music of your era, and yet one day someone will ask you to narrate "The Soldier's Tale" by Stravinsky.
I'm not making this up, you know. It happened to Elvis Costello.
Why it happened is not easy to understand, but there he was on the stage of Davies Symphony Hall Friday night alongside Michael Tilson Thomas and members of the San Francisco Symphony, not to mention a couple of genuine actors. The results took a fair bit of indulgence, even from Costello's most dedicated and admiring fans.
I know this, because I am one. My devotion to his music dates from the 1977 release of "My Aim Is True," his debut effort, and has never flagged for a moment in the intervening years.
Yet that enthusiasm has always been based on Costello's extraordinary gifts as a songwriter and performing musician, as well as his keen critical brilliance as a musical thinker. It has nothing to do with his ability to recite either prose or poetry - which unfortunately turns out to be run-of-the-mill at best.
And Stravinsky's pungent little folk tale with music needs more than that. The score, written for just seven instruments, is a bony creation in the composer's neo-Classical vein, and Thomas and the instrumentalists made fine work of its angular rhythms and tart dissonances.
But the music intertwines with plenty of spoken text - telling a traditional story about a not-too-canny fellow who makes an ill-judged deal with the Devil - and any performance relies as much on dramatic values as on musical ones. On Friday, Malcolm McDowell was a wonderful Devil, plummy and insinuating, and Nick Gabriel from A.C.T. brought sweet naivete to the title role; Costello seemed to be more or less along for the ride.
There was more vivacity and delight to be had from the first half of the program, in which John Adams conducted the first Symphony performance of his "Grand Pianola Music" since its 1982 premiere on the long-gone New and Unusual Music series. Like the great "Harmonielehre" of a few years later, to which it serves as a sort of experimental precursor, this is a work that is as much about the act of clearing imaginative space as it is about the notes themselves.
The music is a mashup of Steve Reich, Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto and various pop strains, and it's suffused throughout with the composer's giddy sense of freedom. "Wait, you mean I'm allowed to do this?" you can hear him exult in every measure. "I can just write the kind of stuff I love?"
Of course he can - although that's true in large part because he does it with such exuberance and skill. The piece is scored for two pianos (Marc-André Hamelin and Orli Shaham in this performance) as well as three singers (the fine ensemble Synergy Vocals) and a small stringless orchestra, and Adams combines his resources into a heady blend that is by turns translucent and rumblingly grand.
The only disappointment in this performance, which is being recorded for a later CD release on SFS Media, was the late-breaking decision to have Adams conduct rather than Thomas.
Adams is a capable enough conductor of his own music, but Thomas is a superb one. He boasts a deep understanding of the composer's esthetic, and he has the podium technique to bring out intricacies that can easily get lost in performance. It seemed a shame to settle for the slightly unsteady rhythms of the first movement or the less than perfect balances in the second, when there was a conductor in the house who could have fixed those problems in an instant.
Joshua Kosman is The San Francisco Chronicle's music critic. E-mail: jkosman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JoshuaKosman
San Francisco Symphony: 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 16; 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17, Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. $15-$140, (415) 864-6000, http://www.sfsymphony.org.
The Imposter tweeted "Mud, mud, glorious mud" to the author of the review. That's a line from "The Hippopotamus Song," which EC sang on Spectacle with James Taylor, but I don't know quite what he means by the tweet.
SF Symphony review: Elvis Costello and Stravinsky make a mismatch
By Joshua Kosman Published 4:10 pm, Saturday, January 17, 2015
Once a person becomes sufficiently famous and accomplished, the invitations start rolling in from far and wide - including projects that have nothing to do with their particular talents. You can spend nearly four decades, for instance, creating some of the most intricate, inventive and beautiful pop music of your era, and yet one day someone will ask you to narrate "The Soldier's Tale" by Stravinsky.
I'm not making this up, you know. It happened to Elvis Costello.
Why it happened is not easy to understand, but there he was on the stage of Davies Symphony Hall Friday night alongside Michael Tilson Thomas and members of the San Francisco Symphony, not to mention a couple of genuine actors. The results took a fair bit of indulgence, even from Costello's most dedicated and admiring fans.
I know this, because I am one. My devotion to his music dates from the 1977 release of "My Aim Is True," his debut effort, and has never flagged for a moment in the intervening years.
Yet that enthusiasm has always been based on Costello's extraordinary gifts as a songwriter and performing musician, as well as his keen critical brilliance as a musical thinker. It has nothing to do with his ability to recite either prose or poetry - which unfortunately turns out to be run-of-the-mill at best.
And Stravinsky's pungent little folk tale with music needs more than that. The score, written for just seven instruments, is a bony creation in the composer's neo-Classical vein, and Thomas and the instrumentalists made fine work of its angular rhythms and tart dissonances.
But the music intertwines with plenty of spoken text - telling a traditional story about a not-too-canny fellow who makes an ill-judged deal with the Devil - and any performance relies as much on dramatic values as on musical ones. On Friday, Malcolm McDowell was a wonderful Devil, plummy and insinuating, and Nick Gabriel from A.C.T. brought sweet naivete to the title role; Costello seemed to be more or less along for the ride.
There was more vivacity and delight to be had from the first half of the program, in which John Adams conducted the first Symphony performance of his "Grand Pianola Music" since its 1982 premiere on the long-gone New and Unusual Music series. Like the great "Harmonielehre" of a few years later, to which it serves as a sort of experimental precursor, this is a work that is as much about the act of clearing imaginative space as it is about the notes themselves.
The music is a mashup of Steve Reich, Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto and various pop strains, and it's suffused throughout with the composer's giddy sense of freedom. "Wait, you mean I'm allowed to do this?" you can hear him exult in every measure. "I can just write the kind of stuff I love?"
Of course he can - although that's true in large part because he does it with such exuberance and skill. The piece is scored for two pianos (Marc-André Hamelin and Orli Shaham in this performance) as well as three singers (the fine ensemble Synergy Vocals) and a small stringless orchestra, and Adams combines his resources into a heady blend that is by turns translucent and rumblingly grand.
The only disappointment in this performance, which is being recorded for a later CD release on SFS Media, was the late-breaking decision to have Adams conduct rather than Thomas.
Adams is a capable enough conductor of his own music, but Thomas is a superb one. He boasts a deep understanding of the composer's esthetic, and he has the podium technique to bring out intricacies that can easily get lost in performance. It seemed a shame to settle for the slightly unsteady rhythms of the first movement or the less than perfect balances in the second, when there was a conductor in the house who could have fixed those problems in an instant.
Joshua Kosman is The San Francisco Chronicle's music critic. E-mail: jkosman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JoshuaKosman
San Francisco Symphony: 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 16; 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17, Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. $15-$140, (415) 864-6000, http://www.sfsymphony.org.
The Imposter tweeted "Mud, mud, glorious mud" to the author of the review. That's a line from "The Hippopotamus Song," which EC sang on Spectacle with James Taylor, but I don't know quite what he means by the tweet.
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The Gentleman
- Posts: 253
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Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
People like to discuss EC's unlikely collaborations, but I'm pretty sure EC/Lars Ulrich has instantly vaulted to the top.
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
I'm Not quite clear what's going on with the twitter banter here - Flanders & Swann references with the journalist. But why the bad review? Is it a joke or something? Curious. Seems unjust. Elvis really had a small part and did a great job. Not sure what the beef is here. I enjoyed the event, maybe the classical types found it ordinary/pedestrian. Whatever. These Bay Area critics are killing me! "Insert rude comment here."
As for my other comments on this thread, read this and to gain perspective:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/201 ... s.html?m=1
As for my other comments on this thread, read this and to gain perspective:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/201 ... s.html?m=1
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
http://www.elviscostello.com/news/three ... inion-/683
Elvis graciously posts the iffy review of the recent show...
Elvis graciously posts the iffy review of the recent show...
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sweetest punch
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Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
https://www.sfcv.org/reviews/San-Franci ... F-Symphony
Of Pianolas and Devils: Adams and Stravinsky at SF Symphony
Thursday's birthday party for Michael Tilson Thomas continued into the weekend's concerts as he led a lithe performance of Stravinsky's L'histoire du Soldat (The Soldier's Tale). Berkeley’s John Adams, another longtime SFS collaborator, dropped by to conduct his own Grand Pianola Music, lending the evening even more of a festive air.
As Adams explained to the audience before the concert began, his idea for Grand Pianola Music began with a dream in which two limousines were driving down a highway while morphing into gigantic pianos.
The pianists this weekend were Orli Shaham and Marc-André Hamelin. They play essentially the same music but are deliberately a little out of sync, thereby imitating a mechanical Pianola. The work also requires woodwinds, brass, and three female singers, which were performed this weekend by a London-based ensemble, Synergy Vocals.
Grand Pianola Music (1982) is a minimalist work that nonetheless fills a grandiose soundscape. It is unapologetically, even brazenly tonal. The second (and final) movement, “On the Dominant Divide,” glorifies the tonic and dominant chords that are tonality’s backbone. While the total effect might make for intoxicatingly easy listening, the individual parts are, as Adams himself has put it, “surprisingly delicate.” I was especially impressed by the execution of the warring piano parts by Shaham and Hamelin.
While Grand Pianola Music offers up exaggeratedly lush sound, Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale pares down orchestral elements to a skeletal scale. It was written in the last year of World War I, at a time when Stravinsky was both pressed for resources and interested in learning about jazz.
His acerbic work twists seven orchestral instruments — violin, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, bass and percussion — into an idiosyncratic, jazz-like combo. And while there are indeed elements of jazz and other popular idioms, Stravinskian signatures like repetitive rhythms and thorny meter changes still prevail.
As the story goes, a soldier (Gabriel) trades his violin for a book from the devil (McDowell). Yet the soldier cannot read, just as the devil cannot play the violin. The devil asks the soldier to teach him how to play, and by the time the soldier returns home, everyone has forgotten him, including his fiancee, who married another man. The soldier manages to win back his violin and also the hand of a princess whom he saves. But ultimately he wishes to have both the princess and his former flame. And so the devil wins.
While the music was well-served, the dramatic component was perplexingly star-studded yet static. Elvis Costello was the Narrator, Malcolm MacDowell the Devil, and Nick Gabriel as the Soldier. There were no costumes, and little movement. It was baldly presentational, but not excitingly so. Then, too, some producers stage the silent princess as a dancer, but this weekend’s rendition did not. Instead, Thomas briefly spoke on her behalf while reigning upon a stage populated exclusively by males.
Nonetheless, ultimately the moral of the tale was clear: You can't have everything. John Adams may know this all too well. On Saturday he recounted the premiere of Grand Pianola Music at a contemporary music festival filled with fellow composers and new music enthusiasts, where it was poorly received. It has gone on, like several minimalist classics, to win a large audience, but not yet complete scholarly or specialist acceptance.
But most composers would be happy with Saturday's ovation.
Of Pianolas and Devils: Adams and Stravinsky at SF Symphony
Thursday's birthday party for Michael Tilson Thomas continued into the weekend's concerts as he led a lithe performance of Stravinsky's L'histoire du Soldat (The Soldier's Tale). Berkeley’s John Adams, another longtime SFS collaborator, dropped by to conduct his own Grand Pianola Music, lending the evening even more of a festive air.
As Adams explained to the audience before the concert began, his idea for Grand Pianola Music began with a dream in which two limousines were driving down a highway while morphing into gigantic pianos.
The pianists this weekend were Orli Shaham and Marc-André Hamelin. They play essentially the same music but are deliberately a little out of sync, thereby imitating a mechanical Pianola. The work also requires woodwinds, brass, and three female singers, which were performed this weekend by a London-based ensemble, Synergy Vocals.
Grand Pianola Music (1982) is a minimalist work that nonetheless fills a grandiose soundscape. It is unapologetically, even brazenly tonal. The second (and final) movement, “On the Dominant Divide,” glorifies the tonic and dominant chords that are tonality’s backbone. While the total effect might make for intoxicatingly easy listening, the individual parts are, as Adams himself has put it, “surprisingly delicate.” I was especially impressed by the execution of the warring piano parts by Shaham and Hamelin.
While Grand Pianola Music offers up exaggeratedly lush sound, Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale pares down orchestral elements to a skeletal scale. It was written in the last year of World War I, at a time when Stravinsky was both pressed for resources and interested in learning about jazz.
His acerbic work twists seven orchestral instruments — violin, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, bass and percussion — into an idiosyncratic, jazz-like combo. And while there are indeed elements of jazz and other popular idioms, Stravinskian signatures like repetitive rhythms and thorny meter changes still prevail.
As the story goes, a soldier (Gabriel) trades his violin for a book from the devil (McDowell). Yet the soldier cannot read, just as the devil cannot play the violin. The devil asks the soldier to teach him how to play, and by the time the soldier returns home, everyone has forgotten him, including his fiancee, who married another man. The soldier manages to win back his violin and also the hand of a princess whom he saves. But ultimately he wishes to have both the princess and his former flame. And so the devil wins.
While the music was well-served, the dramatic component was perplexingly star-studded yet static. Elvis Costello was the Narrator, Malcolm MacDowell the Devil, and Nick Gabriel as the Soldier. There were no costumes, and little movement. It was baldly presentational, but not excitingly so. Then, too, some producers stage the silent princess as a dancer, but this weekend’s rendition did not. Instead, Thomas briefly spoke on her behalf while reigning upon a stage populated exclusively by males.
Nonetheless, ultimately the moral of the tale was clear: You can't have everything. John Adams may know this all too well. On Saturday he recounted the premiere of Grand Pianola Music at a contemporary music festival filled with fellow composers and new music enthusiasts, where it was poorly received. It has gone on, like several minimalist classics, to win a large audience, but not yet complete scholarly or specialist acceptance.
But most composers would be happy with Saturday's ovation.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.ph ... ticle=1313
Big performances in small packages
Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, along with some very impressive guest artists, had Davies Symphony Hall burning with energy last week with performances of two fascinating and inventive works from both ends of the 20th century.
Two of the most successful and frequently performed composers of modern times, the Russian Igor Stravinsky and the American John Adams, shared a double bill featuring the former's cautionary parable L'Histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale ) (1918) and the latter's joyously over-the-top Grand Pianola Music (1982). The scores have little in common other than their remarkably resourceful use of reduced forces to pack a big punch.
Stravinsky asked for a lean ensemble that included a septet of orchestral players, a trio of speaking actors, and a dancer (not employed in the recent performances) to tell his story of a young man who strikes a deal with the devil. Adams, of course, uses more musicians (in keeping with his wittily titled work), but he does not require a full symphonic orchestra to make his exciting and exultant point, either.
The program opened with the composer conducting pianists Orli Shaham and Marc-Andre Hamelin; sopranos Micaela Haslam and Joanna Forbes L'Estrange, and alto Heather Cairncross, billed as Synergy Vocals; and some 20 members of the SFS. The battery of percussion, played by three musicians, sounded like a full orchestra themselves.
Hearing Adams describe the thrilling days of the SFS and the legendary New and Unusual Music series (held at various off-beat venues around the city), and his memories of the premiere of Grand Pianola Music an amazing 33 years ago, set the perfect mood for the first subscription performances of the name-making score in DSH. The Adams portion of the concert was being recorded for future release on the SFS in-house label, so it made some sense that the composer himself was conducting, though MTT is an excellent interpreter of Adams' works. It also made marginal sense that one of the original pianists at the original premiere (SFS Principal Keyboard Robin Sutherland) was overlooked for a more recognizable name. It didn't matter too much, for the chosen musicians all gave their considerable best to a work that requires both enthusiasm and stamina.
What did nag a bit more was Adams' taking the reins, as he has never struck me as the best conductor of his own scores. He is capable, but dare I say he places a more disciplined order on his reckless and brilliant music than it really needs? The results were predictably wonderful, with a characteristically jubilant finish, but MTT would probably have held the ensemble together better without slowing the forward motion.
The second half of the night was given to Stravinsky and librettist C.F Ramuz's economical setting (performed in English here) of The Soldier's Tale, from a story of Alexander Afanasiev.
Elvis Costello (he partnered with MTT and the London Symphony Orchestra years ago for a recording of his orchestral score Il Sogno) was the narrator. Marvelously mature and richly nuanced British actor Malcolm McDowell (the impish lead of such diabolical tales as If and A Clockwork Orange in his youth) was well-cast as the Devil. Resident company member of American Conservatory Theater Nick Gabriel was the sweet and simple Soldier.
Standouts in the septet of orchestral players were Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik, giving real flavor to his violin solos; and Jacob Nissly, Principal Percussion of the SFS since 2013, making an awful lot more noise than one would expect from a lone performer. With MTT on the podium making funny verbal contributions and traffic-directing the musicians and speaking participants, the hour-long piece whizzed by with all the bases covered.
Costello started out loud and abrasive, but we could blame the atrocious sound engineering at DSH for that, and after he realized he didn't need to shout, his delivery framed the action much better. Costello's sardonic attitude was a good match for McDowell's delicious characterization of the spiteful devil. If there is a moral to the tale, it would simply be a very modern scolding that you can't really have it all.
Stravinsky wrote the piece when he himself was in a cash predicament, but he ingeniously used his reduced circumstances to write something that could not only reach a big audience on the cheap, but also could indulge his newfound taste for American Jazz. It was a lot of fun hearing the genius composer's little theater-piece in the amusing English translation, and the luxury casting was icing on the cake.
Big performances in small packages
Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, along with some very impressive guest artists, had Davies Symphony Hall burning with energy last week with performances of two fascinating and inventive works from both ends of the 20th century.
Two of the most successful and frequently performed composers of modern times, the Russian Igor Stravinsky and the American John Adams, shared a double bill featuring the former's cautionary parable L'Histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale ) (1918) and the latter's joyously over-the-top Grand Pianola Music (1982). The scores have little in common other than their remarkably resourceful use of reduced forces to pack a big punch.
Stravinsky asked for a lean ensemble that included a septet of orchestral players, a trio of speaking actors, and a dancer (not employed in the recent performances) to tell his story of a young man who strikes a deal with the devil. Adams, of course, uses more musicians (in keeping with his wittily titled work), but he does not require a full symphonic orchestra to make his exciting and exultant point, either.
The program opened with the composer conducting pianists Orli Shaham and Marc-Andre Hamelin; sopranos Micaela Haslam and Joanna Forbes L'Estrange, and alto Heather Cairncross, billed as Synergy Vocals; and some 20 members of the SFS. The battery of percussion, played by three musicians, sounded like a full orchestra themselves.
Hearing Adams describe the thrilling days of the SFS and the legendary New and Unusual Music series (held at various off-beat venues around the city), and his memories of the premiere of Grand Pianola Music an amazing 33 years ago, set the perfect mood for the first subscription performances of the name-making score in DSH. The Adams portion of the concert was being recorded for future release on the SFS in-house label, so it made some sense that the composer himself was conducting, though MTT is an excellent interpreter of Adams' works. It also made marginal sense that one of the original pianists at the original premiere (SFS Principal Keyboard Robin Sutherland) was overlooked for a more recognizable name. It didn't matter too much, for the chosen musicians all gave their considerable best to a work that requires both enthusiasm and stamina.
What did nag a bit more was Adams' taking the reins, as he has never struck me as the best conductor of his own scores. He is capable, but dare I say he places a more disciplined order on his reckless and brilliant music than it really needs? The results were predictably wonderful, with a characteristically jubilant finish, but MTT would probably have held the ensemble together better without slowing the forward motion.
The second half of the night was given to Stravinsky and librettist C.F Ramuz's economical setting (performed in English here) of The Soldier's Tale, from a story of Alexander Afanasiev.
Elvis Costello (he partnered with MTT and the London Symphony Orchestra years ago for a recording of his orchestral score Il Sogno) was the narrator. Marvelously mature and richly nuanced British actor Malcolm McDowell (the impish lead of such diabolical tales as If and A Clockwork Orange in his youth) was well-cast as the Devil. Resident company member of American Conservatory Theater Nick Gabriel was the sweet and simple Soldier.
Standouts in the septet of orchestral players were Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik, giving real flavor to his violin solos; and Jacob Nissly, Principal Percussion of the SFS since 2013, making an awful lot more noise than one would expect from a lone performer. With MTT on the podium making funny verbal contributions and traffic-directing the musicians and speaking participants, the hour-long piece whizzed by with all the bases covered.
Costello started out loud and abrasive, but we could blame the atrocious sound engineering at DSH for that, and after he realized he didn't need to shout, his delivery framed the action much better. Costello's sardonic attitude was a good match for McDowell's delicious characterization of the spiteful devil. If there is a moral to the tale, it would simply be a very modern scolding that you can't really have it all.
Stravinsky wrote the piece when he himself was in a cash predicament, but he ingeniously used his reduced circumstances to write something that could not only reach a big audience on the cheap, but also could indulge his newfound taste for American Jazz. It was a lot of fun hearing the genius composer's little theater-piece in the amusing English translation, and the luxury casting was icing on the cake.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
another photo here - http://www.sfgate.com/style/article/S-F ... to-7408199
- bild.jpg (77.48 KiB) Viewed 20535 times
Re: EC Guest Narrator with SF Symphony Jan 16-18, 2015
Elvis & Malcolm McDowell photo by Chris Roe, who's in the second photo.
