Changing Lives: Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema and the Transformative Power of Music

This is the first book in English to document a remarkable program in Venezuela that teaches large groups of children to play instruments, starting them as young as three years old. Since El Sistema, as the program is informally called, has produced the charismatic young conductor Gustavo Dudamel, global music lovers have taken notice. They hope it and similar programs now begun in other areas will give birth to future stars. Tricia Tunstall creates a vibrant snapshot of the original program in Venezuela and variations on it in the U.S. thus far.

El Sistema is the product of a visionary economist and musician named José Antonio Abreu. In the mid-1970s he decided to organize young people regardless of family economic level into performing workshops. He was acting in reaction to the solitary world of the conservatory, but he also saw social value in building community among young, economically disadvantaged players.

At first only 11 showed up for a rehearsal in a garage. From that grew the idea of more advanced musicians teaching younger pupils in a group setting that became a neighborhood unit or nucleo.

There are now an astonishing 400,000 students in government-supported nucleos throughout Venezuela. Dudamel, its most famous graduate, has been the sensation of the music world since being chosen, while still in his twenties, to be principal conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The most revolutionary part of El Sistema is that it emphasizes groups playing together as a team, and thus as a way of fostering social change. Tunstall quotes Abreu saying “if you put a violin in the hands of a needy child, that child will not pick up a gun.”

Changing Lives is written with verve, in a journalistic style. It opens with a portrait of Dudamel and the LA Phil opening its fall 2009 season with a free concert – Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, no less – at the Hollywood Bowl. It includes playing by the YOLA (Youth Orchestra LA) as well. The crowd is filled with Latinos and others who love what the author calls the Venezuelan “with the emotive hair and an impressive career trajectory.”

Then the author visits some classes and nucleos in Venezuela itself. It turns out there is not one main youth orchestra but several. The top two are the ones that tour the world. Tunstall paints an exceedingly upbeat – some might say too upbeat — picture of the children, who love their instruments and their sound. Although Tunstall throws in a few brief caveats about how not everyone is equally talented, she says nothing about what must be the inevitable failures and dropouts.

However, she is clear that El Sistema is more than a music education scheme; it is a mission and a message. Her book is a valuable introduction to the phenomenon of Dudamel and the program that nurtured him and many others.

Changing Lives: Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema and the Transformative Power of Music by Tricia Tunstall. 2012.  298 pages. ISBN 978-0-393-07896-1. W. W. Norton & Co.

Weep, Shudder, Die: A Guide to Loving Opera by Robert Levine

This priceless little book had me laughing out loud. It is primarily a guide to the standard repertoire, aimed squarely at the hordes of us who have become regular opera goers because our local movie theaters are now showing HD broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which are both comfortable to watch in jeans and much easier on the wallet.

The introduction, “No Need to Wear Your Jewelry,” gives away Levine’s down-to-earth message. He is an expert who wants to take the starch out of enjoying the miracle of music combined with drama. As he says, the plots don’t really matter; the voices and the music do, because there are moments that “should and will transport us to a sphere way above our quotidian lives.”

For each opera Levine summarizes the plot, lists leading characters and includes a few paragraphs on unique elements (called “Achtung! Moments” in the German opera section and “Far Morire” – “to die for” – in the Italian and French). A bonus: funny captions on photos of olden-times performers in costumes. One, for instance, shows unnamed, outlandishly dressed Magic Flute participants with the caption:  “Papageno finally meets Papagena, an arrangement clearly made on WeirdDate.com.”

Weep, Shudder, Die by Robert Levine. 2011. 242 pages. ISBN 078-0-06-194131-3. It Books.

Fear of Music by Jonathan Lethem

For a decade, Continuum Books has published a series it calls 33 1/3, small volumes that allow a critic to obsess about a single album in his or her collection that deserves more than liner notes. The latest, from the novelist and essayist Jonathan Lethem, is a wonderful time-tripper that takes him (and us) back to 1979. We see through his middle-aged eyes “a fifteen year old boy sitting in his bedroom” listening to the radio, as lead singer David Byrne announces Talking Heads’ third album.

I loved this album too, and Lethem is so good at evoking its pleasures, from the textured cardboard of the cover to its best song, “Life During Wartime,” that I actually pulled out my copy of the original 33 1/3 rpm LP to re-examine it.

The book is packed with insights simple and complex on the band, this album, and subsequent ones, including an individual chapter on each cut.  Lethem locates the band’s stature as the best of its era but what’s audacious (and typical for this terrific writer) is that he picks not TH’s greatest album, but the one before Remain in Light, with which Talking Heads shed its New York downtown parochialism to become a national phenomenon, later captured on film in Jonathan Demme’s documentary Stop Making Sense. This book distills the rapturous moment for Lethem and, by proxy, for each of us, when “mere” pop tunes spark an epiphany that lasts a lifetime.

Fear of Music by Jonathan Lethem, 2012. 141 pages. ISBN 978-1-4411-2100-4. Continuum.  Paperback.

– Grace Lichtenstein

When I was a freshman in college, I read Agatha Fassett’s Béla Bartók: The American Years, and found it both fascinating and heartbreaking. I had known that much of Bartók‘s music was derived from or inspired by the folk music of his native Hungary and that he felt a deep and powerful attachment to his home country, but I’d had no idea how miserable he was living in New York during his final years (he apparently absolutely hated the urban environment) and how alienated he felt from his home during that time. The years he spent in America were musically productive, but personally very difficult. Listening to this wonderful disc brought back memories of reading that book. During the decade before he emigrated, he had spent a lot of time with his friend and colleague Zoltán Kodály roaming the Hungarian countryside, collecting and transcribing folk melodies, and those provide the musical material for the 44 brief violin duos presented here by Duo Landon (violinists Hlíf Sigurjónsdóttir and Hjörleifer Valsson). The purpose of these compositions is partly pedagogical and partly evangelical: Bartók wanted to provide a set of technical etudes for young violinists, but he also wanted to inculcate in them a love for the astringently beautiful melodies of his homeland. Duo Landon make the (modest) technical demands of these pieces seem inconsequential, and the melodies come alive under their fingers; many of the pieces dance thrillingly, while others keen with longing and others seem to scold or laugh. There are lots of drones and vinegary open harmonies, and moments of delicate loveliness as well. This is an unusually impressive recording. Grade: A

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
The Complete Psalms
Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam / Harry van der Kamp
Glossa GCD 922407

Anyone who loves the music of the Flemish polyphonic masters will feel a little visceral thrill at the series title Het Sweelinck Monument. A monument indeed, this three-volume series consists of three boxed sets: one containing Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck‘s complete secular chansons, another his complete Cantiones Sacrae, and this one, a twelve-disc set containing all of his psalm settings. In each case, the Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam first sings the simple melody as found in the Genevan Psalter; this was the sourcebook upon which Sweelinck drew for his basic material. Then the ensemble sings Sweelinck’s motet-style polyphonic setting. The relentlessness of this arrangement and the length of the program make listening through the entire box something of a challenge, but few would want to approach it in that way in any case; instead, the wise listener will take it in one disc at a time, relishing the gorgeous part-writing and the expressive text settings. The Gesualdo Consort’s one-voice-per-part texture can get a bit wearing over time, but it does expose the musical structure nicely, and the ensemble’s sound is colorful rather than smoothly blended. Recommended to devoted fans of the composer and his period, and to all libraries. Grade: A-

Mauro Giuliani; Ferdinando Carulli; Anton Diabelli
Duos and Serenades
Ensemble Consolazione
Ars Produktion ARS 38 515

Ensemble Consolazione is a duo consisting of guitarist Jan Tulacek and flutist Karel Valter, and on this utterly gorgeous disc they perform duos, serenades, and grandi duetti concertanti by Mauro Giuliani, Ferdinando Carulli, and Anton Diabelli. Two things are particularly interesting about this recording: first the pieces themselves, which are lovely exampels of the early Romantic period at its best. All the structure and rigor of classicism are still apparent in these pieces, but the emotional effusiveness of the Romantic aesthetic and an emerging structural adventurousness are coming into view as well. And although the flute carries the main melodic burden and occupies the more prominent register, it’s the guitar writing that is the more interesting on most of these pieces–at the turn of the 19th century the guitar was a tremendously popular instrument in Italy, and the three composers represented here were all guitarists. The second interesting thing about this recording is the instruments used. Tulacek (who is also himself a builder and restorer of guitars) plays a Rudert guitar from 1814 which has been “entirely preserved in its original state”–remarkable in itself, and noteworthy also because the guitar has such a lovely tone. Valter’s flute is a modern copy of an eight-keyed flute from the late 1700s. I happen to play a similar one and can attest to the difficulty of coaxing an attractive tone from the higher registers; Valter’s ability to do so is highly impressive, and his playing is exceptionally good. This recording is a pure delight all around. Grade: A+

Nicholas Ludford; Richard Pygott
Missa Regnum mundi; Salve regina (Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks, Vol. 2)
Blue Heron Choir / Scott Metcalfe
Blue Heron BHCD 1003

The Boston area has been a hotbed of world-class early music ensembles ever since the founding of the Boston Camerate in the 1950s. More recently, the Blue Heron Choir (under the directorship of Scott Metcalfe) has emerged as one of the most impressive vocal ensembles in the area, and perhaps on the entire east coast. Possessed of a tone that is transcendently rich and sweet, the group not only brings devotional luster and gentle intensity to everything they sing, but has also been unwilling to simply fall back on the standard Renaissance repertoire. This disc is the second in a projected five-disc series that will bring to light music that has been effectively lost for centuries–liturgical works from the Peterhouse Partbooks, collections put together in the mid-1500s for Canterbury Cathedral and partially destroyed during the upheavals of the English Reformation. The music has been reconstructed by scholar and composer Nick Sandon (who wrote his 1983 dissertation on the partbooks in 1983), and is in the final stages of publishing the reconstructed versions. Fascinating as the history is, it would matter little if the music were less gorgeous–but as it turns out, this is music of rare beauty, and as always, the Blue Heron Choir does it full justice. Very highly recommended. Grade: A+

– Rick Anderson

Simon Carrington at the Three Choirs Festival

This video shows Simon Carrington, a well-known choral conductor and clinician and co-founder of the Kings Singers, guiding four student conductors through choruses from Handel’s Messiah. Each student prepared a different chorus and led the professional chamber choir Musica Beata through a complete run of the movement. In the sessions, Carrington generally emphasizes lightness and balance, he is positive, and he asks the students to explain their ideas or what they heard and what they might to do change. The battles that Carrington picks are a little obscure and difficult to change in a 25-minute session—“bringing people in,” for instance, or encouraging the students to “do it differently.” With each conductor he appropriately emphasizes text—how it informed and affected Handel’s writing, how the singers interact with it technically and musically, and how it plays into the audience’s experience. The disc concludes with a complete run-through of the four students composing their assigned movements.

The disc kicks off with a short interview with Carrington in which he reflects on the masterclass and the changes that he was trying to elicit from the conductors. He also gives general advice on how to prepare for a choral rehearsal. The austerity of the main menu is a little jarring, with white, sans serif text on a black background asking us to either “play all” or “select chorus,” but the video itself is nicely shot. The camera angles are quite useful—a side shot that shows the profile of the conductor’s upper body (with just a few too-close-ups that lose focus on the student’s posture and gestures), and an overhead shot from the back. The audio is good enough to hear changes in the choir as they respond to changes in the student conductors, and you can hear every single word spoken by Carrington and the conductors. This should be a provocative disc for young conductors.

Remembering Frédéric: The Genius of Chopin. Directed by Pamela Howland. Stone’s Throw Films, 2012. 63 minutes. $25.00.

Adapted from a one-woman show of the same name, Remembering Frédéric is a one-hour documentary written, produced, and directed by Pamela Howland, an active pianist and adjunct assistant professor at Wake Forest University. Howland includes interviews with a wide range of specialists, from the Provost of Frédéric Chopin University to professors in both English and radiology to the owner of Botique B&B in Warsaw. Throughout the film, there are several special interviews with actress Rosemary Harris, who won the Emmy for her portrayal of George Sand in the 1970s Masterpiece Theatre series Notorious Woman. A special emphasis is placed on Chopin’s relationships—with Sand, the artist Eugène Delacroix, his father, and others—and how his illness affected those relationships. Ms. Howland also serves as narrator and as the performer of any of Chopin’s works we hear in the film. As they come up, she inserts several “teaching moments” in which she directly addresses the audience to cover the differences between his waltzes, mazurkas, etudes, and nocturnes. Howland is elegant in appearance, in her playing, and as a voice-over. The documentary is fast-paced as documentaries go, with succinct interviews, short musical clips, and lovely, often-rotating images of portraits, and of buildings and monuments in France and Poland. The piano music played in the background is almost constant and at times a little distracting from the spoken audio. While a broad range of audiences would enjoy this film, academically it is probably most appropriate for high school or early undergraduate students, especially those studying piano. This is a very personal film, an obvious labor of love, and a genuine tribute to “the Genius of Chopin.”

Hvorostovsky in Moscow. Philharmonia of Russia, conducted by Constantine Orbelian. Delos (DV 7006), 2012. 58 minutes. $19.99.

This short and affordable disc features Russian baritone Dimitri Hvorostovsky, one of four singers who received an Opera News Award just a couple weeks ago. In this 2008 performance he is joined by Verdi specialist Sondra Radvanovsky—a special occasion as part of Moscow’s “Hvorostovksy and Friends” concert series—for a scene each from Un Ballo in Maschera and Il Trovatore. The two are regular collaborators, both in fully-staged productions and “best-of” aria recitals such as this one, and their chemistry did not disappoint in this performance.

Some of the audio we hear on this disc is actually taken from Delos’s 2008 CD release Verdi Opera Scenes, but to the credit of California film editor Steve Scoville, it’s difficult to tell which arias those might be. And perhaps these are Russian concert traditions, but I was surprised when the performers were showered with lovely flowers after every single piece, and when each piece was announced over a loudspeaker prior to its performance. Overall, this is a well-played, beautifully-sung recital.

– Anne Shelley

WWOZ is a community radio station founded in 1980, and their website sports the slogan “bringing New Orleans music to the universe.”  First and foremost, WWOZ streams its shows live, with streaming easily accessible via a nice big box on the top left of the website. They post extensive playlists and DJ lists – it’s very easy to see who the DJ is, and what song is playing. As befits the rich musical heritage of New Orleans, WWOZ’s programming covers traditional jazz, contemporary jazz, blues, soul, Cajun, zydeco, R&B, and more.

In addition to streaming music, the WWOZ website also features video and audio clips about New Orleans music and traditions, live concerts from the radio station and New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, a weekly program called New Orleans All The Way Live, and more.  If you’re heading that way, there’s a music and community events calendar, plus plenty of information about the Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Offbeat: Louisiana Music and Culture is an online magazine that covers New Orleans music, local events, plus reviews of music, local restaurants, and books.  Current and archived issues are available.  I randomly selected the February 2012 issue, which highlighted Mardi Gras and dug deep into this fabled event’s history.  There was an article highlighting the Carnival Collection from Tulane University’s Louisiana Research Center, an interview with parading brass band members, and a cover story about a local high school’s marching band and its place in the Mardi Gras festivities.  Plus about a dozen CD reviews, many of local, independent musicians – and this is just one issue – the archives go back to 1988.

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival website includes information about the Festival, which has expanded its musical roster to include national and international music heavyweights in addition to local acts.  Cameras were rolling and captured live footage from such nationally known performers as Gomez, Tom Petty, Galactic, Bonnie Raitt, Bon Iver, Grace Potter, Zac Brown, and the Foo Fighters. Video footage also includes such New Orleans musicians as Allen Toussaint, Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Irma Thomas, and Marcia Ball.  You can access the videos through a big link on the website’s home page.  You might also try looking at the schedule, which often includes a live video of each band.

Finally, the Louisiana Music Factory is a New Orleans based music store focusing on Louisiana musicians, broadly categorized under “New Orleans Music,” “New Orleans Jazz,” “Cajun Music,” and “Zydeco Music.”  In addition to an impressive, deep catalog of CDs and DVDs, they also recorded a number of live, in-store performances by musicians during Jazz Fest.  Click on the “Pics & Videos” link to catch dozens of performances by John Boutte (who sings the theme from the New Orleans-based TV series, Treme), Cyril Neville, the New Orleans Nightcrawlers, Kermit Rufins, Jason Marsalis, The Iguanas, Waylon Thibodeaux, and many others.

– Gene Hyde

A Natural Woman: A Memoir 

Carole King occupies a singular and extraordinary place in pop music history and her frank, engaging memoir shows us why. Now 70, King’s life has spanned the whole of rock and roll history, from Elvis onward. Here, she describes her journey — from Brooklyn childhood to pioneering working mother, hit songwriter, star performer and environmental activist. While King has chosen to omit a few key private matters that were revealed in Sheila Weller’s dishy Girls Like Us (Atria Books, 2008), she talks about her personal life in the same authentic voice that has endeared her to generations of fans. They are sure to make this No. 1 with a bullet on their must-read list.

Absorbing classical and show music thanks to her mother, King was a prodigy who began making up songs on the piano at three.  Then, inspired by the black rhythm and blues she heard on radio and at Alan Freed’s live shows at the Brooklyn Paramount theater, she developed her own ambition, with chutzpah to match. She wangled introductions to Freed, Don Costa and other industry luminaries while still attending James Madison High School.

But Carole also longed to be popular and attractive to boys. (Didn’t we all? Full disclosure: we were classmates and I later wrote about her for The New York Times.) Graduating from high school at 16, she found her soul mate at Queens College in Gerry Goffin, who became her lyricist. Quickly married, they competed with other songwriting duos in tiny cubicles at Al Nevins’ and Don Kirschner’s Aldon Music. (See review below.) By her 18^th birthday, King and Goffin were the proud parents of both a baby girl and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” the first of a mind-boggling number of chart-topping tunes.

Her career took a new turn when King and Goffin separated in 1968. She left the hit-factory nest for California. She became a Laurel Canyon hippie earth mother and matured into a singer-songwriter of supreme craftsmanship and warmth. However, at the peak of her fame –1971’s Tapestry became “a multiplatinum-selling album that had wildly exceeded my teenage dreams” — King was ambivalent toward success. She didn’t want to be a star; she preferred being a mom and a sideman.  “I didn’t want the problems that came with being famous,” she writes.  Alas, she could not avoid them.

Married to bassist Charlie Larkey, King stayed home with her newborn third daughter rather than travel to collect Tapestry’s three Grammies.  A fourth child, a son, came along, and she grew even more torn between touring and the comfort of husband and family.

When she and Larkey divorced, she found herself “spending social time with people actively seeking the very visibility that I had tried to avoid….living a lifestyle I loathed….a parody of a pop star.”

Her reaction was radical: she turned her back on fame and ran off to the wilds of Idaho with Rick Evers, a drifter who became husband number three. She says she ought to “have asked Rick two questions: ‘Why are you living in a van?’ and ‘Are you by any chance psychotic?’” In the most painful part of the book, she admits that he physically abused her and that she betrayed her own sense of self by staying with him. He died of a cocaine overdose in 1978. Always feeling she needed the approval of a man, she next married an Idaho survivalist, “Teepee Rick” Sorensen. That didn’t last either.

Carole was not the kind of hippie who got lost in a drug haze – she was too busy milking goats and homeschooling her youngest two children while living miles from nowhere in Idaho. And she never abandoned music. The book is filled with tales about her forays out of the wilderness to write new songs, tour and get together with musicians such as John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson and especially James Taylor, whom she credits with pushing her into the solo spotlight.

Because she effectively stops at 2005, there is nothing of her sensational 2010 reunion tour with Taylor; hopefully King will write a sequel about it. Meanwhile, alongside recent releases like Keith Richards’ Life and Jay-Z’s Decoded, this is an essential addition to every collection of pop autobiography.

A Natural Woman: A Memoir by Carole King. 2012, 488 pages. ISBN 978-1-4555-1261-4. Grand Central Publishing.

Don Kirshner: The Man with the Golden Ear, by Rich Podolsky.

The story of the Brill Building era of pop music, and of legendary teams like King and Goffin, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill and others has been told before, most notably by Ken Emerson in Always Music in the Air (Viking, 2005). As its most important ringmaster, Don Kirshner, who built its powerhouse publishing house Aldon and later the TV show Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, deserves a biography. Journalist Rich Podolsky provides it.

Anyone eager to hear Gerry Goffin’s first-hand version of events can read it in either book. Podolsky also conducted long interviews with Kirshner before he died in January 2011.  Podolsky’s trials in connecting with his subjects make for awkward passages; best are the details behind the astounding series of hits between 1958 and 1963, from Bobby Darin’s “Splish Splash” to “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers.

The roster of artists whose tunes came from Aldon songs reads like a wing of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: King, Darin, Sedaka, Connie Francis, Tony Orlando, the Drifters, the Shirelles, the Everly Brothers, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.

Kirschner spurred what Podolsky calls “a healthy competition” among the song-writing teams. The reward: as little as $25 apiece per song. Eventually Kirshner signed his brood to longer-term contracts, but they realized, as King writes, that they were “chattel.” Although Podolsky’s portrait is of a lovable father figure, he was, more importantly, a shrewd businessman taking advantage of naïve youngsters. No wonder they felt betrayed when Kirshner in 1963 sold Aldon to Screen Gems/Columbia for millions of dollars. Time heals all wounds; Don Kirshner is to be inducted (posthumously) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this month and his presenter will be Carole King.

Don Kirshner: The Man with the Golden Ear, by Rich Podolsky. Hal Leonard Books 2012. ISBN: 978-1458416704. 304 pages.  Hardcover.

– Grace Lichtenstein

Listening more than fifty years after it was recorded in 1959, it’s hard not to read a sort of melancholy defiance backwards into the tone of this brilliant live album by the Benny Goodman Orchestra. Goodman’s brand of sunny, deceptively straightforward-sounding big-band swing had withstood the onslaughts of bebop (from the east) and the cool jazz movement (from the west), and was still standing proud. But this was 1959, and the knockout punch was only inches away: very soon, rock and roll would decisively take over the role that swing music had played in youth culture for decades. The threat is nowhere in evidence here, however: the band (which, that October night in Freiburg, included vibraphonist Red Norvo, trumpeter Jack Sheldon, pianist Russ Freeman, and other notables) swings mightily through such standard tunes as “Air Mail Special,” “Raise the Riff,” and Goodman’s signature number “Let’s Dance.” Best of all, Anita O’Day is on the date contributing saucy and bell-toned vocals on “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Let Me Off Uptown” and several other tracks, notably a wonderful medley featuring “Not for Me,” “Four Brothers,” and an unidentified twelve-bar blues on which she scats irrepressibly. The inexcusably sketchy liner notes are irritating (is that Jack Sheldon forgetting half the words to “Gotta Be This or That”?), but they constitute the only significant flaw here. Fans of old-school swing should snap this up without hesitation. Grade: A

Well Wishers
Dreaming of the West Coast
That Was My Skull

The Well Wishers is essentially a one-man-band. Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Jeff Shelton came of age as frontman for Bay Area power-popsters the Spinning Jennies, who broke up in 2004 after an eleven-year career. Over the course of five albums with that band, Shelton honed his hookcraft to a razor’s edge, and has now recorded six albums of his own under the Well Wishers moniker, each of them a showcase of rough-edged pop sweetness and muscular guitar crunch. The latest one is more of the same, which is great news. As usual, you’ll hear hints of the Beatles (“Nothing Ever Changes Around Here”), of REM (“Here Comes Love”), of Material Issue-style postpunk (“All I Got” and “Free? No”) and you’ll even get the occasional whiff of Byrds-style country rock (“Honoree”). And there’s a wry nod to 1960s herbal culture in the form of an excellent cover version of one-hit wonder The Smoke’s “Have Some More Tea.” But despite all the obvious influences, Shelton’s sound remains solidly personal and reasonably unique; his guitar playing is consistently interesting but always tasteful, his voice is plainspokenly attractive, and his hooks are indelible. Only a curiously boxy and home-demo-ish drum sound keeps this album from being an unalloyed pleasure. Grade: A-

10 Ft. Ganja Plant
10 Deadly Shots, Vol. II
ROIR RUSCD 8321

10 Ft. Ganja Plant (who are way overdue to get the award for Least Subtle Reggae Band Name Ever) are a semi-secretive ensemble whose membership is never published, but is nevertheless widely known to overlap significantly with that of Ithaca, NY’s brilliant neo-reggae outfit John Brown’s Body. Over the course of eight albums, these guys have historically focused on 1970s-style roots reggae, most of it instrumental, with a heavy emphasis on dubwise production. On the second entry in their 10 Deadly Shots series, they hark back even further, to the bouncy “rock steady” sound that acted as a stylistic bridge between the galloping off-beats of 1950s and 1960s ska and the slower, smokier grooves of roots-and-culture reggae. They’re abetted in that endeavor by the presence of keyboardist Roger Rivas (of Los Angeles rock steady revivalists the Aggrolites), who brings the multifarious organ sounds that were so centrally important to the rock steady era–you’ll hear echoes of the great Jackie Mittoo here, and of course more than a hint of the Upsetters from their instrumental-heavy days around the turn of the 1970s. This development may not be greeted with unanimous glee by the band’s growing legion of fans–anyone who has been following 10′GP’s career over the past decade has come to expect something very different from what’s on offer here. But fans of vintage rock steady and early reggae will find plenty to enjoy on this album. Grade: B+

Francesco Cavalli
Vespro della Beata Vergine
Glossa GCD 922509

Those who recognize the name of Francesco Cavalli almost invariably know him as the composer of over 40 operas (nearly 30 of which still survive) during his 60-year career at St. Mark’s in Venice. Unfortunately, his sacred compositions have not survived in similar numbers. This truly excellent recording draws on one extant collection, Cavalli’s Musiche sacre, which includes a variety of pieces that can be drawn upon to populate a full vespers service. Those familiar with the early baroque repertoire will immediately recognize musical similarities between the service recreated here by Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and Concerto Palatino (under the joint direction of Bruce Dickey and Charles Toet) and the much-beloved and identically titled 1610 vespers by Claudio Monteverdi: like Monteverdi’s, this program begins with the standard versicle “Deus in adiutorum meum intende” and its standard response “Domine ad adiuvandum me festina,” and then proceeds to a “Dixit Dominus” and a variety of other psalm settings, hymns, and antiphons–though in this case, the antiphons are replaced by instrumental pieces: the six church sonatas included in Cavalli’s compendium are interspersed among the psalms and the Magnificat setting, creating a wonderful diversity of sounds and textures and, in some cases, truly glorious polychoral sections. It’s enough to make a music-lover downright depressed about how much of this gifted composer’s sacred music has been lost to posterity. Grade: A+

– Rick Anderson

Antonio Vivaldi. Orlando Furioso

Trouble is afoot on the island of Alcina. Its resident evil sorceress bewitches practically every character in Orlando Furioso, so naturally the cast is compelled to perform passionate, seven-minute songs, then immediately make buggy eyes at whoever is currently singing. For three hours. This world-premiere staged video recording of Orlando brings us many of the same singers who collaborated with conductor Spinosi on a 2005 recording of the opera. Marie-Nicole Lemieux—whom I could listen to all day—graces us with her unearthly beautiful instrument. Lemieux has seemingly endless intensity and stamina, perfect for her title character’s long and arduous descent into madness. Other callouts are due to countertenor Philippe Jaroussky with his full and colorful tone, and to Romina Basso as Medoro. The closest thing to a weak link in this production is baritone Christian Senn as Adolfo, who can’t quite meet Vivaldi’s demands for flexibility. The staging presents a Venice that is unrelentingly dark and shadowy, and the blocking is a little awkward at times, but every note from the Ensemble Matthaus seems to shimmer, always floating, cascading, and intensifying with perfect timing and poise. The DVD’s packaging—as visually striking as the production—includes a lovely and useful booklet with a synopsis, extensive program notes, biographies, and a note from the directors. Recommended.

Claudio Monteverdi. L’Incoronatione di Poppea. Directed by Ole Anders Tandberg; conducted by Alessandro De Marchi. Available on DVD and Blu-ray disc. EuroArts (2058928), 2010. 180 minutes. $24.99/$39.99.

If you’re a stuffy traditionalist seeking to challenge your rigid ways, this could be your cold turkey opportunity. In this live performance of Monteverdi’s final opera, controversial stage director Ole Anders Tandberg turns L’Incoronatione di Poppea on its ear. His interpretation of the libretto’s moral ambiguity puts a spotlight on the opera’s key takeaway—that greed triumphs over virtue—but the execution is so blatantly sexual that it distracts from the storyline rather than enhancing it. The only color we see is red, shown in flushed cheeks, on pouty lips, and through pints of human “blood.” When the characters are fully clothed (hint: not always), their attire is modern rather than the expected period dress of Imperial Rome. The production’s oddities are not limited to Tandberg’s vision, unfortunately. From the onset of the prologue, the Orchestra of the Norwegian National Opera sounds frazzled and rough. I was also generally disappointed with the quality of the singing; as Poppea, Birgitte Christensen’s breath intakes are so audible that they’re almost asthmatic. Monteverdi doesn’t leave much wiggle room for pitch accuracy, let alone for the amount these singers insist on wiggling. Further, I question the wisdom of shooting video in monochrome and then releasing the product on Blu-ray, and the many and lengthy close-up shots eliminate the physical context of the minimalist stage which—in case you were wondering—is a single, mammoth, metallic slope. There are just too many blemishes here on what should have been a visually striking and respectable production.

Ludwig Van Beethoven. Fidelio. Conducted by Artur Rother; directed by Gustav Rudolf Sellner. Arthaus (101597), 1963. 124 minutes. $29.99.

This historic and nicely restored 1963 performance from the Deutsche Oper Berlin is now available for the first time on DVD. Fidelio was featured at the company’s 1912 opening of the Deutsches Opernhaus, a structure that like many others did not survive the mid-1940s. This production commemorates both the 1962 reopening of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the company’s 50^th anniversary, and it was prepared for television and broadcast shortly after the run of the anniversary performance. In this film we hear the Fidelio overture, while the often-included Leonore Overture No. 3 is omitted. The three headliners—Christa Ludwig as Leonore, Walter Berry as Don Pizarro, and James King as Florestan—are absolutely top shelf.

– Anne Shelley

Paste Magazine

Despite nominations for National Magazine awards and a devoted (albeit smallish) following, Paste eventually followed the lead of many niche-market print magazines by going online-only, scrapping the high costs associated with the print publication and distribution model. The initial result was PasteMagazine.com, a free online version of their print magazine.

Last year, however, Paste updated its online presence with the release of the weekly Paste mPlayer, a subscription-based multimedia application featuring much of the same content as the print magazine, including columns and reviews of music, film, television, books, and games, as well as free downloads.  According to the Paste website , “mPlayer is the 2011 version of Paste Magazine…We decided to resurrect the magazine electronically, but rather than just pretend that a computer screen, tablet, or mobile device was a piece of paper, we wanted to start from scratch and reinvent what a magazine could be in digital form.”  The most significant feature of the mPlayer is the inclusion of at least 7 free downloads each week as part of the subscription price, harking back to the CDs included in Paste’s original print version.

The Paste mPlayer works and looks like an iPad app, with clean, easy-to-navigate icons and graphics. The most recent issue (#39, from the first week of April, 2012) includes five feature articles, four columns, 28 reviews, and eight video clips. A video player sits across the top of the page, and plays music related to the various articles and allows you a quick link to download that week’s free music samples. It’s very well designed and graphically pleasing.

Features include articles on the Alabama Shakes, Trampled by Turtles, Zammutto, and Ben Howard. Branching out from music, there’s also an article on filmmaker Whit Stillman’s (he of Metropolitan and Barcelona fame) upcoming film Damsels in Distress, as well as a profile of Holly Conrad, a costume designer working on monsters for an upcoming documentary by Morgan Spurlock.

Columns include Sean Moeller’s take on the band WATERS, an archived 1983 interview with Kinks songwriter Ray Davies, columnist Shane Ryan’s ruminations on a short story collection by Denis Johnson that’s loosely based on a Lou Reed song, and a column on gaming and gaming culture.

As for music reviews you can read about the new Dr. John CD, Bear In Heaven’s latest, the CD Folila by Malian musicians Amadaou & Mariam, as well as new discs by Great Lake Swimmers, Georgia Anne Muldrow & Madlib, Zammuto, and others. There are also film, television, and game reviews. The videos cover an interesting mix of artists: Alabama Shakes, Lydia Loveless, Heaven, Easter Island, Neil Young, and some clips from SouthXSouthwest.

There’s much to like in Paste’s mPlayer. The content is generally well-written, it covers the same music/movies/culture gamut as the print magazine, and the online app access is fun to use. Subscriptions cost $2.99 per month, which includes 4 weekly issues and a minimum of 7 song downloads per issue. That’s less than 75 cents per issue, and around a dime per download.  A subscription also provides access to previous issues of Paste mPlayer (but not the free downloads). The only ordering option is through Amazon.com (the order form links there automatically). You can cancel at any time, so spending three bucks to give it a shot is a pretty good deal.

– Gene Hyde