86: Fanfare

NYP updates, a local concert report, and an elusive trumpet

Name That Tune

This week’s Name That Tune is a Joey Special. Here’s your (classic Joey) hint: this is from the composer’s Op. 153. No Googling!

As always, your goal is to provide as much accurate analysis as possible. First try to get the nationality, year, and genre, then make educated guesses about the composer and — if possible— the piece. If you know the piece immediately, send us an email at toneprose@substack.com instead of commenting so the rest of us can have fun guessing. 

Last Week’s Results
Tone Prose 85
Robert Schumann, 4 Fugues, op. 72, no. 2

Bravo to Listener Eric on pulling this one out! The neo-Baroque fugue was a nice feint from Submitter Bobby, but you’ve got to wake up pretty early in the morning to pull one over on the Tone Prose crowd!

Eric also guessed Mendelssohn and I (Will) guessed Dvorak, Anna Magdalena Bach, and Joseph Johann Fux.

Think you can stump your fellow Listeners? Go ahead and try!

Head to our Google Form to upload a 30-second clip of an unidentified piece of classical music for us to try to identify.

Unfinished

Status updates on the NYP story from last week:

• The New York Times reports that the Phil has opened a new investigation: “Gary Ginstling, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, said in a letter to musicians, staff members and board members that the organization had hired an outside lawyer, Katya Jestin, a managing partner of the law firm Jenner & Block, to “launch an independent investigation into the culture of the New York Philharmonic in recent years.” “I am empowering Katya to look at everything and to leave no stone unturned, including any new allegations as they are reported,” Mr. Ginstling wrote.

• Oboist Liang Wang (whom, to be clear, is not the accused rapist, but the accused abettor) has been placed on leave at the Manhattan School of Music.

• Wang was scheduled to have performed the Mozart Oboe Concerto on the Phil’s concert program next weekend. That has been scrapped and reprogrammed with Beethoven’s “Ah! Perfido!” I think that’s a pretty amazing programming choice, given the text:

Ah! Faithless one, perjured,
barbarous betrayer, do you leave?
And are these your last farewells?
Who ever suffered such cruel tyranny?
Go, wicked man! Go, run from me,
The wrath of the Gods you shall not escape!
If there is justice in Heaven, if there is mercy,
They will join together to punish you!
Pursuing shade, present wherever you go,
I shall see my vengeance;
I already enjoy it in my mind;
I see already lightning flashing about you.
Ah no, ah no, stop, Gods of vengeance!
Spare that heart, strike mine!
Though he has changed, I am what I was,
Through him I lived, I would die for him!

I mean, some of it isn’t pertinent, but a lot of it is right on the nose!!

Concert Report

Harmonia Orchestra & Chorus, “Rhapsody” (part 1)
April 6, 2024
Shorecrest Performing Arts Center, Shoreline, WA

Faithful Tone Prose readers will be well aware that your authors (by name, Joseph Vaz and myself, William White) recently performed a concert together outside Seattle. Harmonia has just released the footage of the central work on the program, Rhapsody in Blue, and I (Will) am here to give a little report in the form of hype.

It’s hard to think of a more iconic piece than Rhapsody in Blue. It has been a repertoire staple since its premiere, it became the signature tune of United Airlines, and it even got used (to brilliant effect) in Fantasia 2000. So how does a performer make it fresh?

Well, the trend in recent years has been to “jazzify” it; the piano soloists in the past several performances I’ve heard have interpolated lengthy improvised solos in addition to or in place of the Gershwin cadenzas. I personally do not care for this trend, just as I do not care for conductors adding needless dynamics to the symphonies of Haydn and Mozart, or playing Baroque masterworks at mercilessly zippy tempos.

I understand the impetus to put a personal stamp on the music, and this is why I was so delighted with this performance. As you will see, Joseph Vaz — yes, Joey, the Tone Prose first mate himself — has sprinkled his interpretation will all sorts of delightful, thoughtful, surprising nuances and touches that prove there’s life in the old gal yet!

It’s really impressive stuff, so the thing to do is to watch the video and witness it for yourself. I’ll put in some extra huzzahs for the Harmonia Orchestra, who added quite a few stylistic flourishes of their own! Aside from Joseph’s performance, my favorite part was the banjo player, who was riffing like crazy and added that perfect 1920s dance band touch to the symphonic orchestration. Having him and Joey right next to each other (and therefore, right next to me) made the whole thing a gas like you wouldn't’ believe.

Sound the Trumpet

Listener Jeremy sent in this fascinating article from the Chicago Sun-Times, shockingly about an instrument other than the clarinet. In it, we learn the (slightly disgusting) fact that the Chicago Symphony’s current principal trumpet performs on the 1955 Vincent Bach trumpet that Bud Herseth played for something like 60 years. And now, Indiana’s Conn-Selmer, the American cheese of trumpet makers, is taking a crack at it:

“It’s a very famous trumpet,” said Mark Dulin, artist representative for Conn-Selmer, the country’s largest manufacturer of brass instruments. “It has a really great sound. But that trumpet is from 1955. It’s worn out. The valves have been redone five times.”

The violin played later that evening is nearly 300 years old. Trumpets can’t last nearly that long, because of the stress of valves being pressed, rust caused by saliva coursing through the tubing, even a musician’s sweat, which will peel the finish off a horn. Batallán’s trumpet was in a batch of 11 crafted by Vincent Bach, the master trumpet maker, at his prime in 1955.

“These trumpets have been studied for a long time,” said John Hagstrom, CSO second trumpet. “Just like Stradivarius violins, they’re reverse-engineered, trying to find out: what makes them so great?”

It turns out that part of what made the trumpet special is that Bud Herseth got in a car accident in 1952 on his drive home to Oak Park from Symphony Center and he had to have it outfitted to accommodate his new dental work. Or so the article says, but I don’t buy it. I say the trumpet would have been even better had it not been for this mishap. All this proves is that Bud should have taken the train.

Tone Praise

 It seems that Ferde Grofé — George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue orchestrator / legal opponent / eventual funeral pallbearer — is having his moment in the sun alongside the Rhapsody’s 100th anniversary year. I (Joey) heard this suite on classical music radio in Cincinnati this week, and thought that it sounded like Gershwin (complimentary). Beyond his Grand Canyon Suite, I had never heard any original music by Grofé, so this gave me a positive impression!

Tone Prose is a co-production of William White, Joseph Vaz, and the Listeners (i.e. you.)