DONA NOBIS PACEM

 

Grant us peace. We could use some uplift after the week we’ve had.

As I mentioned, we went to a performance of Mozart’s Requiem yesterday. One of the good things about this town is that we have a spectacularly good symphony orchestra, really top tier. That’s our wooly-headed music director, Stéphane Denève, on the podium. The music was at times terrifying but ended with hope. I’m grasping for some.                 

IN NEED OF A WARM HAT

It's finally getting quite cold here, although it's much worse further north. 18th Century wigs just aren't enough to keep the brain warm. Woolfie should get someone to make a run to REI for him.

Today is a travel day, with an major change of scene by tonight. Hope to have something to show Sunday morning.                

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - TONIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT

We reached our first stop. Gustavo Dudamel isn't conducting tonight (we've seen him a couple of times and he's something to watch). Rather, it's Zubin Mehta, the orchestra's conductor laureate, leading Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor. I remember him when he was the music director at the New York Philharmonic. Afterwards, lucky us, we get to drive back to the hotel on the 101.           

MADELEINE MONDAY

An episode in the struggle to keep Ellie's taste in music somewhere above Jo Jo Siwa and Taylor Swift. The Metropolitan Opera shows live and recorded productions in local theaters. Mrs. C and I attend occasionally. On Saturday an abridged version of Mozart's The Magic Flute was on offer, two hours and performed in English. The kid has liked the Queen of the Night's arias and Papageno/Papagena since she was a tot so we went together. She liked it so much she wants to go to the full opera when it is produced here in the spring.            

MUSIC, SWEET MUSIC

We are going to the St. Louis Symphony's  New Year's Eve gala tonight and I wouldn't be surprised if we heard a bit of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

This was taken at what is sometimes called composers' circle in Tower Grove Park. It's been on the blog a few times but sometimes I run out of ideas. A gazebo-bandstand is surrounded by marble columns with busts of Beethoven, Wagner, our friend above, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Verdi and I'm probably forgetting somebody. The busts are all well-aged and a little ghastly. Who would we put on twelve such columns today? I have my opinion.      

Wolfie

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Here's Beethoven's neighbor in Tower Grove Park. Nobody is really sure what Mozart looked like. There are a small number of paintings but their accuracy is uncertain.

Everyone who enjoys this kind of music revers him, of course. His expression of delicate emotion is unmatched (e.g., the famous andante in Piano Concerto 21). The style in his day made it hard for him to let it rip (Beethoven fixed that), but he could do a creditable job in works like the Dies Irae from the Requiem (although I myself prefer Berlioz's version). But for my money, nothing compares to the operas, the pinnacle of the art form. In particular, Mozart's passages of explosive, complex six part harmony, like Sola, Sola In Buio Loco in Don Giovanni and Alla Bella Despinetta in Cosi fan Tutti turn my brain to jello, put a big-ass smile on my face and make unable to walk for a while. That's entertainment.

The subject is wet plinths and content desperation on Downtown St. Louis 365.

Mamma, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Lawyers

.Spectators at Friday evening's Bridge Bash. I don't know for a fact that these gentlemen are lawyers, but given what's left downtown (professional sports teams, homeless people, the Arch and lawyers) it's a pretty good bet. Perfectly tailored, a Budweiser in one hand and a Crackberry in the other. And out to watch stuff get smashed to bits.

Happy happy joy joy. Yesterday was opening night for Opera Theatre of St Louis. We've been subscribers for more than 30 years. STL doesn't have a grand opera company like New York, Chicago or San Francisco. What we do have is the most pleasant experience possible. A thousand seat theater with a thrust stage, so everyone is near the performers. It is on a leafy college campus and patrons have a picnic supper on the lawn before the show. Four works done in repertory in May and June, all sung in English. The opener was one of the crowning achievements of Western art, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, in a flawless, sparkling performance. I came home humming Piu Non Andrai.