Review: Browns in Blue (The 5 Browns)

I've followed the five Brown siblings for several years now for two reasons: 1) because they are Mormon and attend the same church I went to as a child, across from Juilliard where they study, and I'm always in favor of prominent Mormon musicians; and 2) because they are clearly trying to make classical music "accessible" to people of our generation and I admire their efforts. I've enjoyed this latest album Browns in Blue mostly because each of the selections has a classically beautiful melody, many of which will be recognizable even to those who don't follow piano repertoire (except for the arrangement on the Vaughn Williams hymn "If You Could Hie to Kolob" which will mostly likely only be recognized by LDS people). The siblings are clearly targeting a younger listener who needs a little glamor and schmaltz to go with an all-acoustic recording, and I for one enjoy their glitzy poses and hang-loose personalities.

I have two complaints, however. In all the marketing and comfortable programming, I feel that the individual artistic temperaments have been sacrificed. Presumably each of these siblings has a distinct style or taste that varies (however insignificantly) from the others'. But you'd never know it as one carefully executed piece by one sibling moves right along to another carefully executed piece by another. I'd like a little more blood and guts left on the floor of the recording studio-- I'd like to be able to tell when Greg is playing or when it's Deondra-- but perhaps the ensemble work that's brought them fame has also diminished their individually passionate voices.

The Chopin Nocture (Op 48 No 1) played by Greg seemed to me to have the most soul and drive of any of the pieces on the recording. A rather adventurous video of his "Superstar Etude" suggests that there's something more under his surface, which, for me, is reassuring.

Secondly, I come away from the 5 Browns' recordings feeling that the potential of five pianos being played at once has barely been scratched. What a thunderously rich, orchestral noise five pianos can make together! And yet the arrangements in which all five of them are playing suggest to my ear that each of the siblings is perhaps playing a single line, or a simplified part, rather than a fully developed polyphony. I compare their arrangements to those Leif Ove Andsnes emplyed at his Risor festival when he gathered 10 of the greatest pianists in the world and had them play everything from Bach to a Jamaican Rumba.

All in all, I am thrilled for the 5 Browns and would reach for their latest if I were to recommend an introductory piano recording to a friend. It's happy, untortured stuff and for that I am grateful.

A Palette Cleanser After Too Much Turkey...

The Friday after Thanksgiving, my dad and I went to a matinee at Symphony Hall to hear the BSO perform Smetana's Overture to The Bartered Bride and Ma Vlast, his symphonic work of six tone poems. As a patriotic composer, Smetana is often overshadowed by his Czech countryman Dvorak who also made ample use of native folk tunes. James Levine is a "complete, unabashed Smetana nut," according to his program notes, and since I've never actually heard Ma Vlast performed, I was anxious to hear his usual unbridled enthusiasm in full force.

Perhaps it was all the 20th Century stuff I've been listening to in conjunction with reading The Rest is Noise, but Smetana's overwrought string work and alternating dominant/tonics sounded more like movie music to me rather than the "masterpiece" Levine claims it is. Not that that is a bad thing: after too much Stravinsky and Mahler, some good ole symphonic storytelling was an effective palette cleanser! I left the concert feeling ready to dive head first back into the Russian and German totalitarianism of the 1940s.

Alex Ross Live

On Monday night, I left the kids with E and ventured into Harvard Square to hear Alex Ross, the author of The Rest is Noise, speak at the Harvard Book Store. I felt very cool indeed as I took my place among the graduate students and professorial types; kind of an out of body experience actually as I haven't been one of the academic crowd for so very long.

Ross spoke initially about himself and how he came to write such a book: as an undergraduate at Harvard he had been involved with the campus radio station and discovered many forgotten LPs among the station's library that introduced him to 20th sounds, both classical and popular. His stated mission is to make clear the connections between classical music and the rest of the 20th century, both politically and musically, but intertwining music with stories of governments, wars and personal histories. He clearly has a thorough analytical understanding of how music came to be the way it is today, and in what way each genre owes its dept to traditional Eurocentric music of the past.

As a speaker, Ross is remarkably eloquent. His book is written in a comfortable yet nourishing style, and his speech is the same. He stated that his book hosts three different conversations: the first is a discussion of the "explosion of style" that defined 20th century music; the second is the discussion of how "politics and music intermingle" with the composers "becoming soldiers"; and third, a discussion of the "lonely, outlying figures" like Sibelius who didn't define new styles or revolutionize sound and therefore are often overlooked in histories of the period.

The only thing that disappointed me was that he was not nearly as witty as I had hoped he'd be. This was important to me not because I was in the mood for jokes, but because I've felt through his writing that he's been able to lighten the atmosphere surrounding classical music and I was hoping his personality would convey an equal lightheartedness about his subject. I feel strongly that classical music could use some advocates who don't take things quite so seriously, who are able to convey the joy and all-consuming nature of music study without bogging it down in the ladder-climbing and self-satisfaction of the academic elite. Ross' writings have done the entire industry a huge service in this regard, but I still feel that academics, journalists and business people within the field of classical music could make further strides in readjusting the industry's perceived uber-seriousness.

Perhaps I'm looking for a public figure who, through sheer force of personality, could lift the industry out of its "obscure pandemonium" (as Alex Ross says) up to a place of mainstream recognition. With Pavarotti's death so recently behind us, his image comes to mind. Is there an academic or a business leader who could have a similar effect, making not only "Nessun Dorma" widely recognized but the whole language of classical music?

Mahler's the Name of the Day -- Again

So today, after Levine and Walter, I listened to Simon Rattle's version of the Mahler 9, which he just performed with the Berlin Philharmonic in New York as part of Carnegie Hall's 17-day Berlin in Lights festival. Reading the New York Times' ArtsBeat blog about the festival, it makes me think that there is a non-condescending way to do thematic programming after all. All of New York --from Chinatown to St. John the Divine -- have been introduced to the sounds and talents of Berlin over the past week. The musical energy in the city this week has had a little help from Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra who, according to YouTube footage, have a hard time putting on airs.

In Praise of The New Phil

I'd already been playing the piano for a year by the time I was my daughter's age. I've resisted the ambitious mother's inevitable capitulation to the siren call of Suzuki, but that doesn't mean I haven't taken her to her fair share of "children's concerts". After four years of them, I've started to dread even the very term. There's been very little that's child-friendly about most of the ones we've attended: they're still in large, intimidating concert halls where the kids are preferred, if not expected, to be quiet and take what's good for them. But last Saturday, the little one and I ventured out to the Newton Cultural Center where we sat on the floor in a converted gym and listened to the New Philharmonia Orchestra play to fifty toddlers and their parents.

The last movement of Dvorak's 6th symphony was first on the program. Little E was sitting on my lap, and at the first crashing chords she looked up at me and said, "Wow!" Wow, it was loud! Wow it was cool to be sitting so close. Wow it was cool to be able to say wow and not have other (better) parents look at my kid and go "Shh." After that, there was a very coherent explanation by a first violinist of the term "ostinatto" and a selection from Holst in which the kids sang along with the ostinatto. Finally, a series of variations on Yankee Doodle showing off each instrument in the orchestra and with the vocal talents of a local 3rd grade. Little E was in awe.

The afternoon finished with an "instrument petting zoo" -- E tried a pint sized cello, violin, trumpet, horn, trombone, and snare drum. ("And triangle!" she reminded her dad.) Fabulous.

An Even Better Mahler Moment

Yesterday I listened to Bruno Walter's 1938 recording of the Mahler 9 (remastered in 1989) and I decided I liked it better than the Levine performance the other night. The tempos were simply faster all around, and it was easier to digest emotionally than the excruciating pulling of Levine's fourth movement, which was so tortured that it periodically lost my interest.

A Marvelous Mahler Moment

Last night, E and I went with some friends to the Boston Symphony Orchestra to hear the Berg Violin Concerto -- played by the eternally youthful Christian Tetzlaff-- and the Mahler 9th Symphony. (Congrats to our friends who heroically made it through the 90 minute symphony!) James Levine, my mom's former boss at the Metropolitan Opera and now musical director of the BSO, conducted. It had been years since I had seen Jimmy conducting live. I periodically read about his left side tremors, and while I didn't notice any overt shaking, he clearly favored his right side.


I was particularly excited to go to this concert because I've been reading about both of these composers in Alex Ross' book, The Rest is Noise, and so I've been making new connections between these composers and their historical contexts. They were both, coincidentally, inspired by the deaths of Alma Mahler's children: Mahler first wrote his symphony in 1910 after the death of his and Alma's own 4-year-old (a little close to home since I have a 4-year-old myself) and Berg wrote his concerto in 1935 after the death of Alma's daughter from a later marriage, Manon Gropius.

I was surprised by how exquisite I found the Berg. I love his opera Wozzeck, but I've always had a harder time with atonality in instrumental music. E preferred Anne-Sophie Mutter's performance, but I love Tetzlaff's complete immersion in what he's playing. As for the Mahler, it's an emotional overload and leaves the listener feeling totally cathartic, but the most distinct moments for me were in the third and fourth movements -- the endless hum of the strings at the close of the fourth were transporting.

The Rest is Noise

I recently began reading Alex Ross' inaugural book, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, which shares its name with his fabulous blog. As a critic for The New Yorker, Ross captured my attention (and many others') years ago when it became clear that he promotes a holistic approach to music, rather than a genre-based elitism. In other words, he likes things because they're excellent, not because they're "classical". He blogs about everything from American Idol to esoteric jazz groups like The Bad Plus to outrageous productions of standard opera repertoire and anything else that runs along the continuum of music's natural historical progression. In 2004, he wrote a defining piece that encapsulates the way I too feel about "classical music" and its bedragled place in the musical constellation.

The book offers an overview of musical development throughout the 20th Century, starting with Mahler and Strauss and focusing how the composers worked within their larger historical contexts. I just finished an amazing chapter in which Ross disects the introduction of African-American tunes and musicians into the fabric of standard, Eurocentric music and his conclusions are remarkable: the rise of spirituals as the foundation for 20th century music was predicted as early as Dvorak in the 1890s, but racist American culture in the 1920s and 1930s prevented talented black musicians from joining the traditional performance circuits and forced them to find a voice within their own underground venues. The chapter led me to wonder what would music be like today if this split hadn't happened? Can we even imagine European music moving along the same trajectory it had for hundreds of years, absorbing and celebrating black influence instead of spitting it out and spawning the birth of jazz and everything else that's followed? Ross suggests we started to see this in Jerome Kern and Gershwin, but "classical music" was already too narrowly defined to let their ideas revive the integrated "high-low art of Mozart and Verdi".

Music is Like That...

Well here I am. I'm not a professional musician, but I was raised in a world of professional musicians and consider myself an educated fan. I was raised in Manhattan as the daughter of a Metropolitan Opera mezzo soprano, and I myself studied solo piano at Juilliard while in high school. I'm trying to keep up my piano skills, but my current full-time job rests at home with my two little girls.

I thought I'd start off by sharing the program notes I recently wrote for my mother's production of Cosi fan Tutte, Mozart's comedy which she is currently directing at the University of Nebraska where she now teaches. My mom's sung Cosi in a number of productions, but I myself didn't know the opera very well. I saw the San Francisco Opera's production of it in 2004 with Frederica von Stade as Despina, a part for which she was deservedly well-renown. I remembered the rest of the cast being stellar too, and in searching around to find who they might have been, I found this nifty site of SF Opera archives where you can look up any past performance.


That 2004 production played Cosi as a lighthearted farce, as evidenced by this photo of Flicka and the seaside resort set designs, when in fact the plot has a malicious undertone which my mom has chosen to play up in her production. So after quite a bit of absorbing research, here's what I came up with.

UNL Program Notes

About Cosi fan Tutte, for University of Nebraska Opera

By the time Mozart wrote Cosi fan Tutte in 1790, opera buffa (“comic opera”) was a well-established musical genre. Operatic comedies had arisen in response to opera seria, the previously dominant style in which plots revolved around kings and gods and lavish materialism foreign to the common people. Mozart in part became so popular with the masses because he fully fleshed out their genre: the comic opera in which maids, peasant girls and soldiers – not kings and gods – are the central characters.

Of all of Mozart’s opera, Cosi is perhaps the finest example of his opera buffa skills. With his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte (with whom he also collaborated on Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni), Mozart created a neat, symmetrical cast – two simple girls, their two soldier lovers, and two cynic “teachers” – and tossed them all together in a soap opera mix up of disguise and deceit. The theme of swapping lovers was not new with da Ponte’s libretto; in fact, strains of this plot device appear as early as 13^th century literature and are fleshed out often in Shakespeare’s own “comic” plays such as Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night, or What You Will.

It seems strange that exchanging lovers so quickly and at will has remained a staple of comedic plots since, if one really considers the emotional toll of such an exchange, real-life swaps seem more nightmarish than funny. But in this opera, the trauma is quickly shaken off by a pithy phrase – “Cosi fan tutte,” concludes Alfonso at the end of the opera, “Women are like that”—and the consolation that there’s been a lesson well-learned. Such troubling resolution reminds us of similarly cheeky titles in Shakespeare: All’s Well that Ends Well, As You Like It, and Much Ado About Nothing. Are we really laughing at these “comedies” or are we more likely laughing at how pitiful human nature really is at confronting and acting out our true depth of feeling?

But Shakespeare only had one creative medium – the spoken word – with which to weave his tragi-comedic emotional roller coasters. Mozart had two: the words and the music. And with Cosi’s uneasy plot, the music makes all the difference. Mozart was universally acknowledged to be at the height of his creative powers during the opera’s composition, and its long list of regularly-performed arias as well as its being the fifteenth most performed opera in the United States suggests that despite the ambiguity of the plot we have not yet tired of the music.

And yet it is the beautiful music which has led some to criticize Cosi over the years: some say the music and the libretto simply don’t match. Aren’t such beautiful melodies at odds with the psychologically disturbing sentiments of the plot? Does the heavenly music dull us to the evil of Alfonso’s treachery and Despina’s implicit anger? Or on the other hand, does the plot contaminate the purity of the sound, making it impossible for us to hear the music without thinking dark thoughts?

Such contradictions offer interesting opportunities for directors of the opera. Some productions choose to sweep the disturbing elements under the rug, playing out the opera in candy-colored sets and treating the fiancé swap as a spring break farce in Florida. At the other extreme, one recent European production depicted Don Alfonso as the devil himself, channeling a bit of Faust with Despina as his misogynistic sidekick.

Neither extreme seems to us to catch the full complexity of the word/music pairing. Perhaps one reason the opera is so popular today is that Mozart is so unwittingly modern in challenging his audience to decipher the contradiction of beauty intertwined with with moral ambiguity. It seems overly simplistic to represent the opera as either all farce or all darkness. In our production at UNL, we have chosen not to deny the ambiguity of the plot (in fact, all of our lovers end up unhappy) yet we have a beautiful, classic set with mostly traditional stage direction. Hopefully this vision of the opera will allow you to decide for yourself how to react. Are you amused? Or a little disturbed? Has the music allowed you to transcend the uneasiness of the plot? Or do you remain mired in the human frailty of the characters? Maybe you leave with the hope that music can make even the ugliest of situations seem a little more bearable. Whatever the opera means to you, Cosi is like that.