Last night I went to the Basilica of St. Josaphat (could they not have picked a more digni­fied-sounding Saint?) to hear the Milwau­kee Symphony. Two of my school chums play in the group—Margot, a violin­ist, and Aaron, a bassoon­ist. It’s a great-sounding orches­tra, though it was hard to hear very much detail in the Basilica, which acoustic makes our old stomping ground of Woolsey Hall look bone-dry by compar­i­son. The strings started off with an unfa­mil­iar Pärt piece, Tris­a­gion, glori­ously well-suited to such a space; same for the next piece, a stolid if unin­spir­ing hunk of ponder­ous Russian Ortho­doxy by one Metro­pol­i­tan Hilarion Alfeyev (or as he is better known, 1 Chain).

The second half of the show was utterly confound­ing: Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye suite, and then TOD UND VERKLÄRUNG. What was even going on here? The program allegedly had some sort of theme—“transformation”, perhaps?—but I’ll be damned if I could’ve figured that one out on my own. I am actually having a hard time thinking of two pieces more ill-suited to being a) bedfel­lows on the same program-half or b) played inside a giant, echoey Basilica. It’s the kind of thought­less juxta­po­si­tion which, instead of illu­mi­nat­ing the simi­lar­i­ties or contrasts of both pieces, serves only to make each one sound ridiculous—cartoonish, even, and Strauss’s tone-poems border on cari­ca­ture already. If the mood isn’t right, the only thing you can think about is: indeed, yes, we are hearing a piece written by a 25-year-old egoma­niac entitled DEATH AND TRANSFIGURATION. My god, if I ever try anything like that, please somebody send me to Siberia. 

St. Josaphat’s Basilica is an enter­tain­ing space: vast & ornate with some of the most convinc­ing trompe‑l’oeil marble I’ve seen. The pews were encour­ag­ingly packed, with children and young couples well-repre­sented. Nice to see you, Milwaukee! 

My hotel contains (possibly a convinc­ing replica of) an old-fash­ioned diner counter, where break­fast is served; the wait­resses are atten­tive and one’s coffee remains mirac­u­lously full. I’ve reached the point in life where I would much rather do without the standard-issue compli­men­tary hotel breakfast—in fact I can think of little more stomach-turning than the little poly­styrene muffins in their glass mausoleum. It is thrilling to be able to pay actual money for smoked salmon & scram­bled eggs & hash browns. 

Speaking of which: this after­noon is the première of my new choral piece, Comfort Food, on Present Music’s annual Thanks­giv­ing concert. Again we find ourselves in a cathe­dral, though it is one of a slightly more manage­able size. Rehearsal yester­day was quite encour­ag­ing, and I’m as un-nervous as it is possible to be for these occa­sions. Again, some detail is unavoid­ably lost to the acoustic, but it’s not a piece where I miss it much, even though I put in all those details myself. The text may be beyond compre­hen­sion, but when is a text sung by a chorus ever comprehensible? 

Present Music is doing some­thing kind of great thing on the concert, which they are calling an “Ives Mashup”— cutting up his song The Things Our Fathers Loved into small chunks and splicing into it a panoply of folk songs, popular tunes, marches, etc. and in true Ivesian manner, having roving battal­ions of instru­men­tal­ists and singers and children’s choirs play and sing in multi­lay­ered antiphonal parades. I wouldn’t have thought this would be a good idea, mostly because it’s hard to imagine split­ting apart one of my favorite songs, but The Things Our Fathers Loved is by nature frag­men­tary, and this further inter­po­la­tion doesn’t bother me at all—in fact, it comes across as a triumphant homage. I’m not quite sure what to expect from the rest of the program, which will feature Native American Drumming as well as me playing The Alcotts. What is clear is that somebody thought about this concert.