A Fine Rhapsody in Blue & a Cooking Swan

Leslie Dala & The Westcoast Symphony Orchestra at the Orpheum - 23 February 2020

When musical director and pianist Leslie Dala communicated to me that he was going to play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue at the Orpheum on February 23 I knew I was compelled to go.

Why?

I have often written here that what makes us human is our talent for association. The Rhapsody in Blue to me brings the memory of Arturo Toscanini, Benny Goodman, Earl Wild and Oscar Levant.

My mother and I had moved to Mexico City in 1955. The first house we rented was furnished and it contained a new-fangled device called a high fidelity record player. My mother slipped in a record and told me, “This is Rhapsody in Blue a lovely jazz composition by Gershwin." Until that moment I had never heard that word, “jazz”. “And this other is his Concerto in F played by a funny, crazy man called Oscar Levant.” I was hooked to that Rhapsody in Blue and particularly to that beginning glissando (I found that is what is called from one who knows, read below).

As an efficient (one notch above lousy) alto saxophone player in the St. Edward’s High School band in Austin, Texas in the late 50s, I can attest to the fact that the clarinet is not an easy instrument. You can blow (and I did) into one and get many different notes, at the same time, and a few squeaks, too. In fact in that recording of Goodman with Toscanini there is a famous squeak!

Another interesting parallel with the Orpheum concert with the Wescoast Symphony Orchestra conducted by Albanian Bujar Llapaj is that the handsome Leslie Dala is no less handsome than Earl Wild.

My listening to Saturday’s Rhapsody in Blue was severely modified for the better by the fact that I was sitting in the front row opposite to Dala’s Steinway. This meant that the piano part was loud. And the full-size orchestra was loud. And that clarinet played by Gene Ramsbottom was loud. They were all loud in the same way that going to listen to the Cramps when they came to Vancouver was loud. It is a nice loud that cannot be imitated by a good home stereo (I have one) or earbuds on YouTube.

Gene Ramsbottom

The performance also emphasized that Gershwin’s composition to me makes that a concerto not only for that piano but for that wonderful clarinet.

When I asked Ramsbottom what other composition, including Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major, K.622 was a special thrill for him it drew a blank.

And there is another thing about attending a concert at the Orpheum. That door on stage right is always unlocked. Those who dare (and I dare) just open it and I always manage to chat with the musicians backstage. This seems to be a fine Vancouver tradition. And also consider that Ramsbottom, at stage edge told me, “I almost played this crazy version of that gliss.” He demonstrated!

I have fond memories of attending noon concerts at the Vancouver Art Gallery that were put together by Ramsbottom. In one of them, I first heard that stellar couple (they soon married), baritone Tyler Duncan and pianist Erika Switzer. In another I fell in love with Ginastera’s La Danza de la Moza Donosa. And for those who might wonder how clarinetists polish their reads, Ramsbottom told me they use Equisetum hyemale  or Rough Horsetail. A version of it is an insidious weed in our garden.

I asked Ramsbottom how many times he had performed in the Rhapssody in Blue. Her is is his emailed answer:

Across the decades about 25 different times. Go to Youtube "Gene Ramsbottom-Battling Boggarts"..the piece I commissioned for 2 solo clarinets and symphonic wind ensemble incorporates the same gliss...and listen to audience reaction..

At this point during the interval I wondered if I wanted to listen to Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana spoiled for me (perhaps in the same way as that Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquín Rodrigo played by a mouth organ) by multiple versions of it in Vancouver fireworks displays.

Carmina Burana also brought to mind my musical ignorance. It was in a 1963 Mexico City where a friend with expanded musical tastes asked me, “Have you listened to Carmina Burana?” I will never live down my answer, “No, who is she?”

I stayed and I was rewarded by another nicely loud performance which not only had the Vancouver Bach Choir conducted by Leslie Dala but also some Vancouver College Choral Ensembles and some smaller munchkins.

I had one problem that vexed me. Carmina Burana has three solo singers, a tenor, a baritone and a soprano. There were only two chairs. On them were baritone Steven Bélanger and Elana Moreau, soprano. Where was Martin Renner Wallace?

Furthermore I stared at Bélanger whose expression was of a strict headmaster of a private school for boys. So when Renner Wallace suddenly appeared to sing his roasting swan song and attempted to take Bélanger’s music and his very chair I was convinced all this was real. It wasn’t as soon as the smart phone selfie was taken.

The last reward for me of the evening performance was to watch the diminutive Albanian conductor (a very active one) and remember that there were only two facts about Albania that I could muster. One, that its capital is Tirana and, two that I once read in my National Geographic that typewriters had been banned for years.

May I suggest that the Westcoast Symphony and Leslie Dala bring us George Gershwin's Concerto in F soon?