Bramwell Tovey, Douglas Finch, Alexander Weimann, Rodney Sharman & Jocelyn Morlock

New Music for Old Instruments - After Bach

My Rosemary and I attended last night’s New Music For Old Instruments – After Bach at Christ Churh Cathedral featuring the Pacific Baroque Orchestra under the Musical Direction of Alexander Weimann.

The concert was a collaboration involving the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Early Music Vancouver and the Vancouver New Music Festival that ends this Monday.

The four contemporary composers of the program (all four were present), Jocelyn Morlock, Douglas Finch, Rodney Sharman and Bramwell Tovey) were asked to compose works with some connection to Bach and with the exact instrumentation of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra that evening.

For me what made this concert special besides the awesome performance of VSO Musical Director Bramwell Tovey on solo piano, Alexander Weimann on solo harpsichord and then the two four-hands on the piano was a moment that I had not really noticed before after many observed live playings of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, BWV 150. 

We all know about that, unprecedented in Bach’s time, of the harpsichord solo in the first Allegro movement. Vancouver Early Music Composer in Residence, Rodney Sharman did praise (to the stratosphere) Alexander Weimann’s playing of that solo. 

For me it was the trio of harpsichord (Weimann), flute (Soile Stratkauskas) and violin (Chloe Meyers) in the beginning of the second Affetuoso movement. It was beyond lovely. I don’t even know if the expression exquisite does any justice to that flute and violin together from our vantage point on the first row facing them.

Soile Stratkauskas, Chloe Meyers & Alexander Weimann

The rest of the concert,  was Bach-inspired works by composers Jocelyn Morlock, Douglas Finch, Rodney Sharman, Bramwell Tovey and Györgi Ligeti (diseased 2006). This last one was a Weimann harpsichord solo of which more below.

But I have to begin with Rodney Sharman and his Tell & Show (not show and tell!) method. Sharman made sure that every composer explained as thoroughly as they could their work but Sharman went one further. For his piece Snared Harmony he brought out his baroque flute (learning it since October) to explain how it works and its capabilities. Demonstrating it (as best he could!) it made understanding some of the odd notes we heard when his piece was performed. And, of course Soile Stratkauskas was top notch with her flute for this work.

Alexander Weimann & Rodney Sharman telling and showing

Throughout the night including conducting Douglas Finch’s Chorale Threnody you could not miss Sharman, the man with the green jacket.

Not all the music was accessible to our non-musicians’ ears. In particular I must cite Finch’s Chorale Threnody which was originally composed for piano (Corey Hamm) and erhu (Nicole Li). I heard that piece performed last year but I could not remember the resemblance. Since I love Charles Ives I was ready to accept that Finch’s polytonality like Ives’s has to be heard more than once. I can attest to the fact that in the last few years I have listened to repeated live performances by the Microcosmos String Quartet (headed by Marc Destrubé) of Bartok’s Quartets but I still cannot tell them apart! I hope I am able to listen to Chorale Threnody again.

Rodney Sharman & Jocelyn Morlock

Jocelyn Morlock’s Revenant (came back to haunt me as I originally heard it played by the Burney Ensemble) was the kind of music that Morlock excels at. She lures you in with tonality and before you know it you are in uncharted territories without knowing it. To my amateur ears, her work sounded as if Bach had hopped on a time machine to LA and composed the work sometime in the 20^th century while drinking Gatorade. Rosemary smiled during the performance.

The playing of the Brandenburg was extra special as the orchestra was reduced to a core that consisted of Stratkauskas on flute, Chloe Myers, violin, Christi Myers, violin, Mieka Michaux, viola, Nathan Whitaker, cello and Natalie Macke, violone., What this meant is that Weimann’s harpsichord could be heard at all times!

Now for my boo-boo. For the pictures I took here I used my brand new Fuji X-E3 which has an electronic shutter that not even whispers. It is completely silent.

During the Ligeti Passacaglia Ungherese, a solo piece for harpsichord (an almost chaconne which is my fave, fave) my camera slipped from my lap to the floor. The CBC recorded this show (the EMV website will inform us when the concert airs on the radio). Chloe Myers who was turning Weimann’s music stared right at me and I wanted to disappear.

The last piece of the night was Bramwell Tovey’s Sinfonia Della Passione. It sounded a tad like Bach but the best part of it (besides the fact that my Rosemary loved it and she rarely likes anything) was the smile on Mieka Michaux’s face. This composition put her viola left, right and centre.

When I photographed the Five Amigos in the Christ Church Cathedral gender-neutral powder room I thought of the fact that Tovey has been a Vancouver institution for years. Will this city understand its loss when he leaves shortly for other shores.

In my daily NY Times I have enjoyed through the years the articles about Tovey conducting the Summer Pops in New York. In the photo he is always wearing a white tux jacket. Invariably the writer mentions how Tovey can make attendees comfortable with his explanations. 

And who would have known that like Weimann he can play a mean jazz piano, compose and just one more thing…

Bach’s Musical Offering occurred at the court of Frederick The Great where the emperor (not a bad flute player) challenged Bach to play something on the spot with the listening of a theme right then.

Both Tovey and Weimann repeated (somewhat) that lofty feat after only listening to a short Bach theme played by Sharman (not at his Emperor’s best) to each one of them. Weimann ended his version with a surprisingly fast ending that I was too stupid record on my silent camera.

I was privy (I have a good ear) to the fact and I can predict here, now, that sometime this year there will be a new composition by Jocelyn Morlock for Early Music Vancouver’s great-idea-in-progress, new music for old instruments.

Meanwhile we can all record the CBC broadcast of Morlock’s Revenant and see how it plays backwards.

A distinct pleasure of our present life in our intimate Kitsilano duplex is that Rosemary and I share our cat Casi-Casi.

My relationship with cats was not always a pleasant one. As a little boy I loved cats and when I would find a stray one I would bring it to our Buenos Aires Coghlan home. Mysteriously (I was too young to figure it out) the cat would disappear after a couple of days. 

I caught on in 2006 when Rosemary, our granddaughter Rebecca and I travelled to Buenos Aires and we visited the Jardín Botánico Buenos Aires. It is a lovely garden full of beautiful statues. It is populated by hundreds of cats. There are stray cats and cats with obvious pedigree. Why are they there? It seems, as I was to find out that the cats are all abandoned there by people who do not want them. I heard troubling rumours that every couple of years the cats are rounded up and put into bags and then drowned in the River Plate.

Rebecca at the Jardín Botánico

The cats of the Jardín Botánico (there are almost as many in the Recoleta Cemetery) are fed by “cat ladies”. Most of them are quite friendly.

It wasn’t until 1977 in our Burnaby home that my daughters saw some kittens in our compound. We adopted one of them and called him Gaticuchi.

I did not know how to handle a male cat who sprayed. I did not know at the time of the difference between peeing and spraying. I remember giving him quite a few slaps after rubbing his nose on the carpet and then vanquishing him to the outside.

A very healthy Gaticuchi made the cover of Vancouver Magazine

But I did learn to handle cats after that and Gaticuchi lived long enough to move with us to our Kerrisdale home in 1988. When he finally died (he was one of many cats I buried in our garden and happened to break a spade doing it) one afternoon we found a tiny black kitten in our side gate. We brought him in. That evening he died in Rosemary’s arms.

When we saw an ad in the Courier offering some black cats we called immediately. Our little, very long black cat, Mosca (fly in Spanish) came hidden in the seat of a Ford Mustang.

Mosca and Polilla

Mosca was soon accompanied by a lovely female tabby we called Cigarra (cicada in Spanish). I remember that she liked to flirt and moved her rear end lots. Cigarra disappeared one day and we suspected a coyote.

Cigarra

I told  Rosemary that the instant cure for a dead or disappeared cat was a new one. We got a female white cat we called Polilla (moth in Spanish). This cat took a long to adapt to us. One day I found her eviscerated (probably by a racoon). I am glad Rosemary never saw her as I did.

One day when Rosemary was getting over foot surgery (the only time I accepted her demand for a TV in our bedroom) I left her (she was watching Hitchcock’s Vertigo) with Mosca at her feet. When I returned I hear Rosemary yell, “Mosca has not moved since you left. I think he is dead.” He was.

Mosca was replaced by a short-lived male cat, Niño, who died of cancer. Toby was a very affectionate male replacement who went the way of our other cats and I buried in our garden in a shoe box.

Plata and Toby

I found a lovely female tabby, Plata (she was called Cash at the SPCA). She was the loveliest cat we ever had. A few days before we moved from Kerrisdale to Kitsilano she died. I buried her in our new home.

Our pleasant love of our life is Casi-Casi. He is placid and helps us both relax. If Rosemary talked to me the way she baby talks Casi I would be in heaven.

Casi-Casi and Lauren

It is here that I want to point out a suspicion that I have about cats. When I think of some of my dead friend or relatives, I can see their faces and hear their voices. Each one of them is surrounded in my memory by an aura of personality that makes each one of them unique and separate.

Cats don’t talk and yet when I think of our dead cats, each one of them has that almost human aura of distinct personality.

My guess is that cats teach us how to deal and interact with our human companions. And they do this only gently demanding (quietly demanding) only what is due to them. In comparison to what they give us that is awfully small.

And more Béatrice
And even more

Ever since I had Tío Pepe Martinis with Evelyn Hart at the then Metropolitan Hotel I feel in love with dance and like a legion of others with Hart.

I have seen lots of dance since. I have discussed dance with many Vancouver dance critics of yore (not too many left now) and Max Wyman is my friend. Wyman wrote a book on Hart which I have read many times.

In short  I have developed through the years an eye for dance, good choreographer and good dancers. While I am a straight and heterosexual old man this does not prevent me from admiring (tremendously) the many men who dance in Vancouver. Anybody out there with a memory for what I have written might remember I feel hard for Arts Umbrella Dance Company’s Albert Galindo. The powers that be in our city did not seem to understand that a good dancer can be a good dancer but without presence excellence will not proceed. A dance company in Israel saw this and promptly hired the young man.

When I watched him dance he reminded me of the grace and beauty of the films I have seen of the great bullfighter Manolete.

In this reduced pantheon of very good dancers with presence there is Béatrice Larrivée who graduated from Arts Umbrella a couple of years ago.

I was completely enthralled by this not too tiny but compact ballerina who had that presence I am writing about. Backstage one day I watched her cry as she had injured her ankle. She sat for a while. And when it was her turn she got up and danced. This is the kind of pathos and emotion that our cyan-blue and very cold city sorely needs.

Unfortuanately Larrivée is doing just fine in her hometown of Montreal.

It is my hope that she will return to our city one day and give us some more of that pathos, emotion, grace and style.