mbietz April 27th, 2007
Rostropovich died today.
He’s always been one of my role models and heroes. His collaborations with Britten and Prokofiev and Shostakovich resulted in some of the best cello music ever written. I had the picture of him playing at the fall of the Berlin Wall hanging in my room.
In 1993 (when he was 66 years old!), I was lucky enough to see him play two big concerti in the same program with the London Symphony Orchestra. I was in London for the semester, and I was taking lessons at the Royal College of Music. I had a lesson earlier in the day and told my teacher I was going to see Rostropovich play the Britten Cello Symphony that evening. I was more than a little shocked with his reply: he had studied with Rostropovich, and for the English premiere of the Cello Symphony at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1964, he was playing in the orchestra, and was asked to go sit in the audience and listen for balance.
So today I’m listening to his recordings of the Bach Suites, and the Britten Suites, and Britten’s Cello Symphony, and Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto. Maybe I’ll even get out my own cello and annoy the neighbors.
mbietz April 22nd, 2007
We just got back from seeing C.R.A.Z.Y. as part of the FilmOut San Diego film festival. It’s a great movie. Coming of age/coming out story, a theme that has been done and done and overdone (and is the staple of every gay film festival ever). But this one is fresh, well acted, well directed, and all-around good. It’s won huge numbers of awards and gotten great reviews. It’s from Quebec. And in French.
You should go see it. Unless you live in the US. Then you probably can’t.
You see, this is another one of those wonderful moments when copyright law bites art in the ass. This was a pretty low budget film (about $7 million). But it’s got all kinds of great music (Patsy Cline, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Elvis, The Cure, etc.). It’s such great music that the music rights cost over CDN$600,000. And that doesn’t include distribution rights in the United States.
And so, the only way this film shows in the US is by getting “festival rights” for the music. Basically, the movie can only be shown at non-profit film festivals, and for a limited time.
I’m with Lawrence Lessig (and many others) on this one: I’m all for artists being able to get paid when other people use their work. But nobody is served by licensing costs and copyright restrictions that are so onerous that the movie never gets seen.
mbietz April 21st, 2007
Last night I cooked a whole fish for the first time.
I had gone to Whole Foods thinking fish. The fillets they had were uninspiring, and there wasn’t a salmon steak in sight,. But the whole fish looked good, and the best-looking ones that were in my price range were Orata. I’d never heard of it. Farmed fish. Just under $10/pound. I was a little annoyed at the fish counter people – they won’t let you get near the fish until you’ve already selected it and had it wrapped. They’ll open the gills for you to look, but you can’t feel it or smell it. But I didn’t feel like driving the umpteen miles on a rainy Friday afternoon to go to a better fish market.
So I get home, and the first thing I do is look up Orata. From what I could find, it’s also called Dorado. Hey – I had Dorado in South Africa several times and really liked it. Score!
I used the Whole Roasted Sea Bass recipe from Martha Stewart. With a little tweaking for what I had in the house (e.g. added ginger, didn’t use parsley, only did one fish).
Fileting was a little difficult, and I didn’t end up with the prettiest pieces. And it seems that the bone structure may be a little more complicated than on the type Martha demonstrates in the video.
The fish itself was pretty mild and I think it benefitted from being cooked whole. It didn’t taste fishy, but it seemed to have a depth of flavor that I haven’t gotten from cooking just filets. But this was the first time that I’ve done this fish at home, and it’s been a while since I had it in South Africa.
Served it with a wild/brown rice mix (thanks Carmen!) and roasted white asparagus with cheese (raclette) sauce.
mbietz April 20th, 2007
Wednesday night we went to see the Matt Wilson Arts & Crafts jazz ensemble. Part of the Athenaeum Jazz at the Neurosciences Institute series. Good good good. They started off with some Thelonius Monk – it took them a couple minutes to hit their stride, but what a stride they hit.
Matt Wilson is a great drummer. He’s got these amazing expressions on stage – if it weren’t for the shock of gray up front, you’d think he was 17. He likes to experiment with the sound – banging on every part of the drum kit, blowing whistles and harmonicas, dropping things on the stage, and using his hands to play everything. The down side of all the experimentation is that it occasionally comes off gimmicky. But when it works, there are some great moments. Amazing variations in tone from what seem like simple instruments. He used what looked like a normal egg shaker, but he was opening and closing his hand in a way that was making a huge range of sounds. And some of the stuff he was doing with the brushes and the crash cymbals was magic.
One of the other highlights was a real live Hammond B-3 organ. I’ve heard them in all kinds of recordings, and everyone knows the sound even if they don’t know what it comes from. My first thought on seeing it was that this is a group on tour, and this thing looks like a real bear to lug around. Organ console with pedals, plus the big speaker case. And with the ancient technology inside, it’s probably really susceptible to gremlins when it’s moved.
The sounds that this thing can make. Growls, barks, moans, wails. There’s that basic gospel organ sound – you expect a robed choir to come swaying down the aisle. But the organ can be so much more. I’d kind of had the impression that playing various electronic keyboard instruments could have lots of keyboard technique, but the sounds were kind of pre-packaged. But with this thing, each little nudge and tweak of the sliders and switches gives a new sound. It kind of felt like a painter mixing the colors in real time instead of just taking what came out of the tubes. I was a little disappointed that Gary Versace didn’t do more with the pedals – it was all fingers for him, but a great sound.
Dan and I both had the same reaction to the concert: jazz (at least of this ilk) has become a parallel universe to classical music. The musicians are just as skilled, and the music is just as thoughtful. It’s working with very different harmonic and structural forms, of course. But like the most interesting classical music, the forms aren’t taken for granted. They push and play and twist and experiment. And they think in long arcs. It’s art music in the best sense.
mbietz April 17th, 2007
We had the water off today. Only a few hours. Supposed to happen again tomorrow. Backflow prevention or something like that. Not a huge deal, but annoying. Like, eating an orange, and then can’t wash the hands. Ug.
