Russian Winter playlist

If you don't plan to hit up the Art Sled Rally this Saturday at Powderhorn Park, you might consider getting down with Devereux instead. The Minnesota Opera kicks off Donizetti's Roberto Devereux- a tale of lusty monarchy, trysts with Duchesses and Earls, treason and vengeance! (that's my friend Ben Johnson kissing the neck of the queen)


It's been a month jam-packed with fabulous performances from the MN Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Hopefully some of you got to make it out to one of the SPCO's Stravinsky Festival shows. My empty pockets and busy schedule kept me from going, so I consoled myself by compiling the Russian Winter playlist below. I did however, purchase tickets to MN Opera's much anticipated La Boheme in March, after months of scrimping and saving! In a future blog post, I'll explore the irony of starving-artist bohemes like myself being unable to afford the $100 tickets it takes to see an opera about starving-artist bohemes ;)





AND NOW... THE RUSSIAN WINTER PLAYLIST

There’s a kind of solidarity between the inhabitants of two frozen tundra lands. I think that’s why Minnesota winter seems the perfect season for fiery, steely-souled Russian music. Just like how in high school I had certain albums that acted as soundtracks for the different seasons- U2’s Unforgettable Fire for November, Bjork’s Vespertine in February- this Russian Winter playlist has been my fur hat- clad, Cossack-style soundtrack for the subzero months.

On the playlist, are 2 of my very favorite composers- Igor Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. I grew up dancing the ballets of these Russian masters. Stravinsky’s eery Petrushka, the story of a love triangle between a creepy clown, rag doll, and Moor doll; his mysterious, exotic Firebird; his raw, tribal Rite of Spring. Then there’s the lesser known Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov whose sultry Scheherazade tells of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. And of course I danced the classic Tchaikovskys- Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Nutcracker. I’ve also included works by the famous “Five” or Mighty Handful: the Romantic-era composers Borodin, Cui, Balakirev, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov, whose epic, nationalist works have become anthems of Russia.


portraits of the composers Glinka (top) and Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov (below) by Russian painter Ilya Repin.



You can listen/watch the playlist via Youtube videos by clicking the link below. If you hit “play all” it will auto play the whole thing. You can also listen to my past playlists on the Trysts Philharmonique Youtube channel. Or you can hear excerpts on this page using the player at the top of the sidebar, and enjoy some pictures of Russian stuff...

Mikhail Glinka - “Ivan Susanin”
Igor Stravinsky – “Petrushka”
Modest Mussorgsky – “The Great Gates of Kiev”
Igor Stravinsky – “Firebird”
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – “The Snow Maiden”
Sergei Prokofiev – “Scythian Suite”
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – “Russian Dances” (from Swan Lake)
Mily Balakirev – “Tamaras”
Sergei Rachmaninoff – “Isle of the Dead”
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – “Song of India” (from Sadko)



painting by Minneapolis' own Luke Hillestad-a reference to Repin's Ivan the Terrible

the Mariinsky Theatermore Repin paintings


Russian fashion Galliano style, Chanel's matrioshka doll purse and pendant, Stravinsky, and faberge eggs

painting of the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna by Ivan Makarov / John Galliano fashion inspired by the Snow Maiden opera by Rimsky-Korsakov




In my years of classical ballet training in the Russian Vaganova style, I was fortunate to be taught by several great Russian instructors, Gabriela Komleva, Alla Sizova, Luba Gulyaeva, Kaleria Fedicheva- principal dancers with the Kirov and Bolshoi ballets- whose fierce, perfectionistic coaching struck the fear of god into my arabesques and taught me the value of striving and suffering for one’s craft. I will also always remember the great Russian maestros Ilya and Tatiana, who accompanied our dancing with beautiful piano.

my Russian ballet teachers...
I found this incredible old video of my teacher Gabriela Komleva...

CLICK PICTURE




... and finally, some post-Soviet photography by Donald Weber...

Horseradish Vodka and the SPCO

The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra's performance "Treasures of the Italian Baroque" last month was our first time attending an Ordway show. So to celebrate, we treated ourselves to some Russian snacks and vodka at Moscow on the Hill in St. Paul before the show. Although the prices were not exorbitant, we don't make a habit of going out, however our orchestra tickets were so reasonably priced that we could chow down in good conscience. Thanks to the SPCO awesome Club 2030 (which is free and we qualify for, being in our 20's) we were able to get $50 6th row seats for only ten buckaroos. Brilliant idea SPCO!

Moscow on the Hill, which is in the Capitol Hill area of Selby ave. was cozy and warm, with flowered Babushka shawls draped from the hanging lamps, an accordion player who walked around, and a stylish vodka bar. I ordered gravlox, greens, and salmon caviar and Mr. H had borsht. The highlight of the meal though, was their Bloody Russian made with the house's special horseradish vodka- a precocious taste-bud experience!
What a delicious evening. Now, my report on the Treasures of the Italian Baroque, featuring the other four senses.

What I Saw:

The elegant, understated lines of the Ordway Center with its copper and mahogany, and golden lighting. Rice Park twinkling like a winter fairyland from across the street. A relatively full-house of sedate, middle to older aged orchestra patrons, with a sparse smattering of twenty and thirty-somethings, and a few sleepy-eyed children hunkered down in their cozy theater chairs.

What I Heard:

An impressive, conductorless evening of lesser known Italian Baroque composers. Regal, rich, and ornamental, the sounds that typify Baroque music were welcome on that bitter-cold night. The orchestra was precise and vibrant, showcasing some really strong soloists. Concertmaster and Juilliard graduate Steven Copes took the cake with masterful solo violin on the concerto grossi. Italian violinist Ruggero Allifranchini was expressive if not a little melodramatic. But principal Julia Bogorad-Kogan, whom the New York Times calls "a wonderful flutist- her playing is graceful, virtuosic, and always full of interest," felt awkward, nervous, even constipated to me.
The only composer in the line up whose name I was familiar with was Vivaldi, but I ended up liking his concertos least of all. My favorites were the Torelli (who lived in Bologna which always reminds me that I'm hungry for boloney) concerto and Locatelli's warm and generous Introduzione Teatrale in G. You can listen to those pieces at the Youtube links below, by clicking the title. This was the program:

Veracini: Overture No. 6 in G Minor
Torelli: Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 8, No. 9
Avison: Concerto Grosso No. 5 in D Minor
Vivaldi: Flute Concerto in D Il gardellino (The Goldfinch)
Locatelli: Introduzione Teatrale in G, Op. 4, No. 4
Geminiani: Concerto Grosso in D Minor
Vivaldi: Concerto in G for Strings and Harpsichord




What I Smelled:
stale coffee breath from the patron sitting next to me, and plenty of granny-ish perfume ala White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor

What I Felt:

A tad bit nippy. I decided to forego the Minnesotan orchestra-goers' trend of Sorel boots and wool sweaters for something a little spicier; an American Apparel number with a hole cut out of the back. A smarmy chide from one matronly orchestra patron saying " you should put a coat on, dear" further inspired me to gamely commit to wearing something fashionable and irreverent whenever I frequent the orchestra. What better excuse to wear something a little less ordinary, than a lovely evening of chamber music?




*the American Apparel dress that I wore, and the Louis XVI-style chair that I reupholstered in vintage kimono fabric



And that's all for now. I'll be back soon with that Winter playlist as promised. Remember to check my calendar of local performances regularly, here and at the sidebar. This weekend is the kick-off of the SPCO's Stravinsky Festival which will be a treat worth catching! And I leave you with these facts:

* Baroque, which comes from the Italian "barocco" supposedly means both "bizarre" and "misshapen pearl"
* Harpsichord ROCKS!

Vivaldi/Stax/Nerds

Memphis by William Eggleston (on display at our own M.I.A.!)

Rufus Thomas (funkiest man alive) Antonio Vivaldi (the red priest)



I was one of the lucky kids who grew up around classical music. My parents are self-employed musicians from Memphis Tennessee- my mother a classical pianist and opera fanatic; my dad, a Berklee College of Music guitarist and jazz dude. Our living room was filled with Chopin Waltzes played live by my mom on our Fender Rhodes piano, alongside of all the Motown, Stax, and Atlantic Records stuff on our stereo. I loved it all.

I composed my debut ballet, an epic, flapping butterfly dance to Vivaldi’s Spring when I was four years old. Then for 15 years, I studied Vaganova Method ballet, performing the classic Tchaikovskys, Stravinskys, Prokofiev- wonderful, exciting music, sometimes performed live by the MN Orchestra under Philip Brunelle (who would piss off the dancers by deciding to speed up the Snow music) at the Orpheum Theater, where we did the Nutcracker.

Orpheum Theater, Mpls

But for most of my adolescent years I was embarrassed to admit I liked classical. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I started to listen again and regularly. I’m obsessed. I love many styles of music and am always looking to discover new stuff, but I’ve mostly been listening to classical lately. I’ve been a tad bored with the simplistic, banal pop songs that are out right now (though that new Lady Gaga video has been blowing my mind- love it.) and all that ubiquitous auto-tuning. It exercises my brain to listen to classical works and follow the complex structures that I’m not as familiar with. Which leads me to…





Reasons why more of our technology-obsessed generation, who have the world at our fingertips, should be into the world of classical music:

(from the Classical Convert)

1. We love discovering and understanding how things are put together. Classical music is a perfect genre for this – each piece is written in one of many basically standardized forms, sonata form, trios, rondos, theme and variations, and so on. However, these forms are stretched and contorted and copied and pasted into very different beasts by each composer. Understanding what they’ve done and why is, well, a lot of fun.

2. We like classifying stuff. Kind of related to the first point this, but it goes way further than just the particular form a movement is in. Each piece can be a sonata, or symphony, or concerto, or oratorio, or something else entirely. Each composer’s output is indexed with opus numbers (or something else if they’re extra special) and each piece has it’s own home key. Understanding what all this really meant and referred to was a huge part of the experience for me.

3. We love hearing new music. One of the reasons that online music sharing has taken off to such a magnificent extent is the innate attraction we seem to have to music. On pretty much any web-forum you’ll find dozens of threads devoted to people trying to find new music recommendations based on their current tastes, and hundreds of responses to those requests from people eager to spread their favorite groups to others. We are very open to hearing new pieces.

4. We love intellectual stimulation. Nerds are the kind of people who will do math for fun, because it’s intellectually satisfying. This is an area in which classical music kicks arse, compared to most popular stuff. A symphony is a story. You can listen to it as background music (which is probably what most non-classical people do when they hear classical) or you can try and follow it’s themes and motivation all the way through. While this is blindingly hard at first it’s amazingly satisfying after you listen to a piece ten times and suddenly it jumps out at you. It’s a very similar feeling to when you finally get a physics or math proof.

5. We already have some exposure to classical. I often see posts on classical boards in which people will refer to music which thy really like from the soundtrack of a computer game. Symphonic scores are also very prevalent in films disproportionately popular in the online world, such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, all of which are sneakily leading people toward the world of classical music.

6. We like having long and detailed discussions/arguments about stuff. Particularly when there is adequate potential to show off knowledge about arcane topics. Classical music is hugely fertile ground for this. We can argue about whether Beethoven’s Op.130 string quartet is better with or without the Grosse Fugue as the last movement, or why on earth there are all those enigmatic Wagner quotes at the end of Shostakovich’s 15th symphony, or… well, you get the idea.

7. We like open source stuff. You can walk into a music library and pull out a full orchestral copy of any of Beethoven’s (or anyone elses) symphonies. You can follow along while listening and discover all kinds of subtleties in the piece, or you can write your own software to analyze it or synthesize it. Anyone can put on a performance of a piece, and sell it, without fear of getting their asses sued off. In fact, one of the most satisfying things about classical music is being able to hear many different interpretations of a piece.


...this and other great stuff can be found at the awesome Classical Convert site!

Next up... FALL PLAYLISTS........stay tuned!!!



Lego harpsichord