Mischa Santora and the Minnesota Orchestra

Evan Quinn’s predecessor at the Minnesota Orchestra, Associate Conductor Mischa Santora, conducted the subscription concerts this past week at Orchestra Hall.  This is Mr. Santora’s last season as Associate Conductor here, and these concerts were his last subscription concerts.  Unlike Evan, however, Mr. Santora will not be stepping up to a co-music directorship at the Minnesota Orchestra.  He built this week’s program around the Bruch First Violin Concerto (Leila Josefowicz, violin soloist), focusing on romantic stories of lovers — Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde (the ancient Celtic source material for Romeo and Juliet), and Daphnis and Chloe.  

As I sat in Orchestra Hall listening, I could remember a time when this ensemble sounded rather so-so.  Not bad, but also not great.  This week, the orchestra’s ensemble playing was so together, so disciplined, so intense, as if Mr. Santora were playing one instrument, not an entire orchestra, concentrated, passionate, completely inside the music together.  Absolutely breathtaking.  The energy dazzled and took me back to the day when I knew I’d finally gotten chapter 1 of Perceval totally right — the balance between Evan’s conducting and Evan’s memories –  a visceral tingling and a mental and emotional high.  I’ve had “peak” experiences before listening to the Minnesota Orchestra and I welcome them.

In the selections for the orchestral suites from Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet, Mr. Santora and the Orchestra took us to the masked ball where Romeo and Juliet first meet.  But first, Mr. Santora set the musical stage with the feuding Montagues and Capulets, one of my favorite of Prokofiev’s themes.  Then, off to the ball, the delicate dancing, the removal of masks, and finally the two new lovers on Juliet’s balcony at daybreak.  The selections contrasted the belligerence of the hatred between the two sets of parents and the fluttering, exciting and all-consuming feelings of first love.  I’d never heard those particular selections from Prokofiev’s ballet in that order and that sound landscape led almost organically into the Bruch.

Max Bruch’s First Violin Concerto premiered in 1866 and represents romantic sentiment in sound at its highest level.  I’d heard many recordings over the years, but had never heard it in concert.  Leila Josefowicz commanded this concerto with intelligent virtuosity, equal partners with the orchestra throughout, and a rich, golden tone.  This concerto also has a muscular aspect to it, especially in the demands it makes on a violinist’s stamina.  Bruch gives the soloist few moments to rest.   

Richard Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde began the second half of the concert.  That amazing chord!  I never tire of hearing it.  I’m not a huge Wagner fan, but I was impressed with the coherence of this rich, theatrical music’s performance in this concert.  Mr. Santora had saved the best for last, building up to the joyous music of Maurice Ravel’s Suite No. 2 from Daphnis and Chloe.  Nobody does orchestral colors the way Ravel does them.  Ravel’s musical voice sang, rising in a spectacular crescendo at the end.  Bravo.

For me, sadness tinged this concert.  As I’ve written before at this blog, Mr. Santora’s 6 feet 5 inch lanky frame makes him unique in the world of conductors and has given me a precedent for Evan Quinn’s height.  As with Evan, Mr. Santora’s height has no effect on his superb conducting.  I have enjoyed his concerts with the Minnesota Orchestra and I’m sad this is his last season with them.  I hope that he is moving on to equally interesting and fulfilling endeavors in music in the years to come.  And like Evan Quinn, will know much success as a conductor and musician.

One final Perceval thought:  I’m saving this program for Evan to conduct perhaps in one of the later novels…..  

   

Paying Attention as a Writer

Could the future of classical music be found on YouTube?  An article in last week’s Time by Vivien Schweitzer described the recent development of musicians auditioning by video on YouTube for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.  Musicians submitted videos of themselves performing standard repertory to be evaluated first by members of the London Symphony and Berlin and New York Philharmonics who selected 200 finalists.  The finalists’ videos were posted on YouTube where users could view them and vote on the musicians they liked best.  Then conductor Michael Tilson Thomas reviewed those and chose who will play in the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.  It’s an internet American Idol for the symphony orchestra. 

As a way to bring classical music to the masses, this couldn’t be better.  Is it the future of auditioning orchestra musicians?  It could save on travel expenses, I guess.  But there’s one glaring thing about it that would probably prevent it from being used in a formal audition process: the player can be seen and identified.  Right now, musicians audition behind a screen — they can be heard but not seen.  The screen keeps the audition judges blind to the musician’s age, sex, color, etc.  All that’s important is the way the musician plays. 

But I started thinking about the future of classical music in a much different way because of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.  What if orchestras, as a routine matter, recorded every concert on digital video to be “rented” or sold online?  What if orchestras, as a routine matter, performed online on a regular basis?  The concert hall could remain a viable performing venue for people who preferred the concert experience live (and it’s really special, I prefer it) while others could see the concert online from anyplace in the world.  My first thought is, how would the musicians and conductor be paid? 

Which brings up a concern I’ve had, and continue to have, about those of us who create something that is unique to us, and the internet.  I know that a lot of content on the internet is free, but I also think there should be “premium sites” where one has to pay for the content produced by people who are making their living from the resulting product (music, books, art, photography, journalism, etc.).  So, an orchestra’s website that also produces video of the orchestra performing could have a free section (clips and other info) and a pay-to-see-and-listen section.  Musicians make their living through performing or composing.  It’s a job, folks, and they need to make money to live just like the rest of us.

But you know, wouldn’t it be WONDERFUL if food were free?  Or clothing, houses, cars, anything one wants?  Just go take it.  But what about the people who provided those things?  I have thought long and often about how different a world we’d have without money and the need to earn it.  But I wonder if humans are ready for a world without money, without money as the purpose in life, as the reward, as the incentive for working or creating.  This is something I touch on in the Perceval novels for Evan Quinn’s future world — some countries have joined together to develop a transition process for eliminating money.

For me, I always seem to end up at Perceval and Evan Quinn.  Evan would not be impressed with the YouTube phenomenon.  He’s not really an internet type of guy.  He prefers the real world, real people (not avatars), real experience (vs. virtual).  For me as a writer, however, I pay attention and think about what I see in terms of the future and how I’ve imagined it, how it needs to evolve….

Researching the Future

I have no idea what the future will be, so “research” became necessary.  Research?  Yes.  And there are resources for that research: books, college courses in futurology, and a website for the World Future Society. 

People who study the future, i.e. futurists, study trends and extrapolate them into the future.  The World Future Society does this.  The American government’s National Intelligence Council (NIC), a center of strategic thinking that reports to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) produces unclassified reports that estimate broader trends in the world of foreign policy for the future.  I’m currently reviewing one of their reports, “Project 2025.” 

In addition to Alvin Toffler’s famous work (Future Shock), I found a fascinating “future history” written by W. Warren Wagar: A Short History of the Future.  In it, Wagar writes an imaginary history of the world from 1995 to 2200 through a fictitious historian looking back at that period.  By the time I’d read Wagar’s book, I’d already written several drafts of Perceval but I needed to fill in more detail about Evan’s world in 2048.  I needed to jolt my imagination.  The work of researching the future is really the work of the imagination.  I was gratified and disturbed to discover that Wagar and I had imagined the future in much the same way, with differences in the details.

The future is everywhere in pop culture and the media.  Time publishes sections periodically on the best inventions for each year as well as glimpses into the future based on the progress of technology.  Science fiction has been a consistently rich vein of future stories, whether on TV, in the movies, or in novels and short stories.  Star Trek: The Next Generation has influenced my thinking.  So much of science fiction, however, focuses on technology or space travel, and I wanted to focus on people.

The future in the Perceval novels is seen primarily from Evan Quinn’s point of view, influenced by his interests and dislikes, as well as his ignorance and education, and his personality.  As a result, I began imagining that in 2048 a backlash against technology and capitalism is in its early stages.  What becomes important is choice.  For example, Evan can choose not to have internet access on his cell phone, and all European cell phones (possibly this will be a global initiative) no longer have video or photographic capabilities.  He can choose not to have a cell phone.  He doesn’t particularly like them.  But cell phones continue to proliferate in design, size and add-ons.  One cell phone circles the face like a spider’s black leg, ending over the mouth.

Research can be fun, seductive, and dangerous.  Too much can stifle the imagination.  Not enough and readers complain that the story isn’t real or authentic.  Other areas of research for the Perceval novels have been grounded in the real world, facts and experience, and far easier than imagining a future world.  However, I found extrapolating trends liberating.  My imagination loved taking the clues I found in my research and creating Evan’s world.  In fifty years, readers may find the novels either amusingly way off base or eerie in how much I got right, but no one can accuse me of not doing enough future research!

Now I think of the Perceval series as a future historical pentad that includes high crimes, politics, espionage, war and suspense, and classical music as experienced by Evan Quinn, an orchestra conductor.

Concert Programs

Last night, I heard an amazing Minnesota Orchestra concert conducted by Osmo Vanska: Carl Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony and Jean Sibelius’ Second Symphony.  I had heard both of the symphonies before, the Sibelius many times because I love it.  The Nielsen didn’t impress me before, but last night, the orchestra revealed sounds that I had not heard before.  The intensity riveted me, compelled me to listen.  I want to hear it again. 

Today I’m thinking about concert programs.  The Minnesota Orchestra leaves next Saturday to begin a European tour and the program last night is one they are taking on tour.  Next week, I hear another tour program that includes a short John Adams work I don’t know, Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto and Beethoven’s Third Symphony.  How did Osmo Vanska decide what to program for the tour?  When taking an orchestra on tour, I’d imagine that the first consideration for programming is logistics and personnel required to play it, but also what would show off the orchestra’s sound and abilities to the best advantage, no matter what the acoustics are like in the tour venues.  The Nielsen sounded fiendishly difficult, a true virtuoso piece for orchestra.  The Sibelius has its own challenges and is a real crowd pleaser.  I love Mr. Vanska’s tempos for the Sibelius.  Adams and Barber are American composers and Beethoven, well, Beethoven is Beethoven and the only pre-20th century composer on the tour programs.  Certainly all these works must be music that Mr. Vanska also loves.  But there must be lots of music he loves, so how does he decide?

I asked him a couple years ago what the most important thing was in developing a concert program.  He told me that timings were the most important, i.e. the timings of the works programmed.  A classical music concert runs about two hours, give or take a few minutes.  (Union and contract considerations influence the length of a concert.)  The intermission is 20 minutes.  That leaves 100 minutes to fill with music.  Generally, the longest work lands on the second half.  A ”standard” concert program would begin with an overture, followed by a concerto, then intermission followed by a symphony.  Of course, variations exist, as Mr. Vanska demonstrated with the tour program of two symphonies.  With especially long symphonies, like Gustav Mahler’s Seventh, they may be the only work on the program, played without intermission. 

Early in writing Perceval, I realized that Evan Quinn, as a conductor, would need to develop concert programs to conduct.  That meant I had to learn about programming.  First, I studied concert programs of both American and European orchestras.  Second, I needed to decide the extent of Evan’s repertoire.  In 2048 America, the Arts Council regularly bans music, books, movies, etc., that it decides it doesn’t like or doesn’t sell enough to make a profit for it.  So, Evan’s repertoire would have holes in it.  I made up a list of banned composers (which I haven’t looked at since!) and plunged into creating the programs for the concerts Evan conducts in the novel.  I realized quickly that I wanted the music to do double duty: not only be music he conducts but also to move the story forward or reveal his character in some way.  That has been my criteria ever since as I’ve created concert programs for Evan in subsequent novels in the series.

I’m really looking forward to the Minnesota Orchestra’s concert next week, and to following their European tour online at their website….