Harry Wimmer harryblog@wimmercello.com

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THE CONCERT AS A MEAL You've had that memorable meal: an apéritif wine presented in gleaming crystal, a tempting appetizer, warm home-baked bread, the main course succulent and cooked to perfection, more vintage wine and, finally, a light and fluffy dessert almost floating in air....... Perhaps we cannot expect a classical concert to achieve that kind of perfection. Nevertheless The Concert As A Meal is an apt simile. Overeating on an evening of all three Brahms Piano Trio red meat dishes is bound to cause, if not musical indigestion, then certainly fatigue and drowsiness in the listener. With rare exceptions, programs such as all six Bach Cello Suites or "Brandenburg" Concerti at one sitting, though great music, present an unnecessary endurance test for the audience.They become athletic events, almost like marathon runs. Equally soporific would be an evening consisting entirely of musical bonbons, candies and trifles, no matter how sweet they may be. Monotony is bound to set in. This is nothing new. As long ago as 1930, the great German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, in a probing essay, grappled with the subject of successful program making. Conceding that, though many program constructions based on historical, ethnic, stylistic relationships often looked great on paper, he felt that they rarely "worked" in practice. Furtwängler concluded that the answer was to try to achieve the greatest contrast possible between works on a program. Place a musical work in its best light so that the listener can absorb its flavor with freshness and full impact. That is why The Concert As A Meal can be very helpful here. A Tchaikovsky Symphony, heard for the hundredth time, will have a vivid presence of sound (taste) and emotion when set off right after that bubbly Haydn Symphony. How profound, yet brilliant, will Beethoven's "Leonore " Overture No.3 sound when performed right at the beginning of the program, rather than at its end, when it becomes merely an orchestral showpiece! At a recent Carnegie Hall concert the pianist Robelyn Schrade , in a daring move, placed Beethoven's Thirty-Two Variations in C minor immediately after an intermssion that had followed a first half ending with Fauré and Debussy, music of obviously quite different texture and syle. This "7th Inning Stretch" only reinforced the feeling that one's palate had been cleansed for the next course and I, for one, was able to savor Beethoven in all his purity, clarity and grandeur. There are obviously many ways to make a musical meal not only palatable but delectable, varied, a feast for the senses. I have tried to do just that in my "From Soup To Nuts"cello concert series, in its fourth incarnation next March 14, 2008 at New York's Symphony Space/Thalia. But that's a subject for another time.......      POSTED: DECEMBER 6, 2007 COPYRIGHT AND TRADEMARK This blog created, written and maintained by Harry Wimmer (hwimmer@wimmercello.com). Thanks to Shirley Givens sgivens@juilliard.edu for her imaginative illustrations. Design and content ©2006-2016 by Harry Wimmer, Incidental Artwork ©20062016 by Shirley Givens. All materials on this blog are limited to personal, non-commercial use. CelloBlogTM Trade Mark by Harry Wimmer

OTHER POSTS Django in Cajun Country Confessions of a Would-be Page Turner Charlie Chaplin - Left-Handed Cellist and Composer Sir Michael Tippett in Carnegie Hall B U X T E - W H O ? The N.Y. Times Misses Out Again! Quack! ARTICLES, CARTOONS The Virtuoso by Wilhelm Busch The Cello Concerto (anon.) Young Itzhak Perlman in Aspen Leonard Rose in Colo.Springs String Portraits by Shirley Givens Bach's C Minor Suite Was Written This Morning. Pablo Casals From Afar Michael Tippett Arrives inShorts Casals Lives On in Puerto Rico The Golden Treasure of San Juan Bach on the Bayou HARRY WIMMER ON BRAHMS: Sonata in E Flat Op.120 No.2 (Live) MENDELSSOHN: Sonata No. 1 in B Flat (Live) CHAPLIN-WIMMER: "Oh, That Cello! (Live) MENDELSSOHN-CASALS: Spring Song (Live) PAGANINI Cantabile (Live) JESUSITA EN CHIHUAUA w/Kevin (Live) ABOUT HARRY WIMMER Bio from the"Joy of Cello Playing" site 2 SKETCHES BY SHIRLEY GIVENS after Wilhelm Busch (1832 - 1908)

Overstuffed . Enjoying the Variety Scetches ©2007 by Shirley Givens.