I spent my whole weekend playing Carmen with the New York Opera Exchange. We played a show on Friday, two shows on Saturday, and a closing matinee on Sunday. We played in a church social hall with no central air conditioning and a too-cramped pit for the orchestra. It was ridiculously hot and on Saturday my back hurt and on Sunday my fingers were so sweaty it was hard to play. And yet I had the time of my life. I’ve had some amazing musical experiences in New York and this one is high on the list (along with playing Mozart’s The Magic Flute in February 2014). I am incredibly lucky to get to play music like this in this city. There are times when I wonder why I’m doing this, when I’m shlepping my viola through a crowded subway car on my way to another rehearsal. I will think of weekends like this one the next time I think about saying no and sitting at home watching TV.

A few quick thoughts on The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies

 

We need shorthand for this movie. BOFA? Five Armies?

The Star Wars trailer looks gorgeous in 3D. 

I'm a little sad. That's the last time I'll see a Tolkien book as a movie, unless someone convinces the Tolkien family to sell the rights to The Silmarillion to someone other than Peter Jackson.

It's nonstop action, except for a few scenes that move the plot along. But what action! I was never bored. It all makes sense, mostly. Most of the fighting is shot close up, so sometimes it’s hard to tell who's an elf, a dwarf, or an orc. That's my only complaint. I was smiling with giddiness, on the edge of my seat (because they keep changing things, I didn't know who might live or die), or near tears for most of the film.

Once again, the music cues are great. There's a really fantastic cue near the end. And the visual effects have never been better. 

Spoilers follow...

There's some effort to make more of a story about Thorin's madness but it's not really there. There’s not enough time dedicated to it to make it effective. Lee Pace has more to do as Thranduil here but he's still kind of an asshole. Or maybe I just think Lee Pace is an asshole because I watched a full season of Halt and Catch Fire.

I could have used more Dain. Billy Connolly was a great choice. More talk about military strategy than I expected. It was fun to see Galadriel and Elrond and even Saruman fighting again. Christopher Lee is in his 90s. I’m sure he didn’t do any stunts, but it was fun just seeing him up there on the screen. And fighting Gandalf! (He's fighting with them, not against them, though that would be cool to watch.) 

I still can't tell who half the dwarves were. Dwalin, Fili, and Kili have the most to do here. And Balin as Bilbo's friend. But the rest are just there. I think I know which one was Ori, and Bombur was the fat one. But the others are just faces. To be fair, I don’t think half the dwarves had lines in the book.

What was the resolution with Tauriel? She loses Kili. Does she go back to Mirkwood? Is she still captain of the guard? 

Also, I don't know if I like Legolas leaving for the North to look for Aragorn. How does he wind up in Rivendell to represent the woodland elves in the Fellowship? Does his dad send a raven? Does Thranduil have another heir to his throne?

Bartok and Bruckner with Bronfman and Gilbert

I love Anton Bruckner's symphonies and I rarely miss a chance to hear them played by the New York Philharmonic. The Philharmonic's stellar brass section is well-suited to Bruckner's sonorous chords and powerful blasts. But Bruckner's music is dense and complicated, with long phrases and meandering melodies. It's sometimes difficult even for an enthusiast like myself to fully enjoy a performance of one of his symphonies without checking my watch or thinking about what kind of gelato I'm going to get after the concert. If the musicians aren't fully involved, or the conductor is hesitant or unsure, the piece can be long and dull and have everyone looking for the exits well before the conclusion. Happily for me and a thrilled audience, Saturday night's concert was none of these things.

Before the Bruckner, the Philharmonic and soloist Yefim Bronfman gave a light and colorful performance of Bartok's Third Piano Concerto. I'm not that familiar with Bartok's music, but I enjoyed this concerto far more than I expected. Mr. Bronfman played with a sparkling quality that reminded me more of Beethoven than a 20th century work. But this playing fit well with the tone that Maestro Gilbert elicited from the orchestra. They brought Bartok's harmonies and angular melodies together with a fully satisfying result.

But that was just an appetizer. The performance of Bruckner's 8th Symphony (my favorite) was one of the most exciting and energetic experiences I've had with this music. Maestro Gilbert and the musicians had me hanging on every note. The brass section, augmented with four Wagner tubas, led the way and balanced well with the strings and winds. The first movement was menacing at times, the scherzo bright and almost cheerful. The third movement was an emotional ride from valley to peak and back. And the finale was every bit as terrifying as I wanted it to be. I felt chills when the music built to a crescendo and brass chords and timpani drumrolls filled the hall. I didn't want the piece to come to an end, even as Bruckner moved from darkness to light. This was a performance I don't want to forget.

P.S.: I had a scoop of pistachio and a scoop of hazelnut gelato at Grom after the concert.

Nielsen night at the Philharmonic

We attended the New York Philharmonic's performance of Carl Nielsen' Symphonies 5 and 6 last night, part of their multi-year Nielsen Project. Previous concerts featured his earlier symphonies and some of his concertos. They opened the concert with Nielsen' Maskarade Overture, which was a five minute overview of everything I love about Nielsen's music. It was frenetic and melodic, with loud boisterous blasts from the brass. 

Nielsen's Symphony No. 5 reminded me more of his 4th than of his other works. Like the 4th, the 5th had frantic string passages and long brassy melodies. But it also had persistent rattles from the snare drum, threatening to disrupt the proceedings more than once. Music Director Alan Gilbert spoke before the work and said that the music evoked a battle scene. While there was obvious conflict in the score, the musicians performed brilliantly in bringing Nielsen's music to life.

Nielsen's Symphony No.6 followed after intermission. This piece, in its New York Philharmonic premiere, was one of the more idiosyncratic symphonies I've heard. The opening movement was unmistakably Nielsen, but the composer took a turn into dissonance as the work progressed. The later movements had odd harmonies and twisting melodies from the wind section. The theme and variations in the last movement were the most unusual, as the theme journeyed through the instrument families, even taking a turn in the percussion section. There was a bit of disarray within the first violin section near the end of the piece, perhaps underscoring the Philharmonic's unfamiliarity with this particular work. But it was brief and for all I know part of the piece.

The orchestra and Maestro Gilbert enjoyed long ovations after both symphonies. It's clear that audiences love Nielsen's music and this orchestra is well suited to perform it. I've bought two of the planned four recordings in the Philharmonic's Nielsen cycle, and I look forward to picking up the last two when they are released.

Also, the Philharmonic handed out free "I [love] NIELSEN" buttons, and we were all too happy to wear ours.

Philip Smith retires from the New York Philharmonic

I really enjoyed this article in the New Yorker about Philip Smith's career as principal trumpet with the New York Philharmonic. I was at one of last week's concerts for Glenn Dicterow's final appearances with the orchestra, and I realized that I was also hearing Smith for the last time. Smith has been a joy to hear over the years, from Beethoven concertos to Honegger suites to Mahler's monumental Symphony No. 5. It's going to be odd to see and hear someone else playing those parts in the future.

A rant about cell phones at the New York Philharmonic

I would love to write about how much we enjoyed the music at Friday night's performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 by the New York Philharmonic. We really did enjoy the music! It was sublime. But what almost marred the concert were the multiple cell phone alerts that went off during the symphony, especially in the last movement.

It had rained off and on all day. Starting at about 9:15 PM, in the middle of the symphony, we heard a faint emergency alarm noise, like the emergency broadcast system alert on TV. It was quiet so it was hard to distinguish it from the music. But when I heard another alarm a few minutes later, it was unmistakably a cell phone alert. These alerts were coming from all over the hall, but they were quiet enough that it didn't seem to reach the stage. We didn't know what was going on, but it was obvious that some people had not turned off or otherwise silenced their phones at the beginning of the concert.

In the middle of the utterly gorgeous final movement, one of these cell phone alerts went off in the row behind ours. It went quiet a few seconds later, but it was distracting. Then it went off again a few minutes later. This time, it almost caused a fight. I turned to look and the phone's owner was cursing under his breath and trying to shut off his phone. The man next to him said, above a whisper, "You have to leave! Get out! You have to leave!" To his credit, the man with the noisy phone left the hall. But it had already ruined the moment for me. I was distracted the rest of the piece, wondering if the next alert would sound close to the stage and force Mr. Haitink to stop the orchestra. Why is it always Mahler whose music is interrupted with cell phone noises? Thankfully, there were no more alarms and the symphony reached its glorious conclusion without interruption.

The alert turned out to be a flash flood warning for the metro New York area. With that many alarms going off during one of my favorite pieces, I hoped that it was actually the end of the world. Flooding was a disappointment.

It's clear that people either do not know how to silence their phones, or they don't care enough about common courtesy to bother to do so. It's infuriating and insulting to the rest of us who want to enjoy the music or movie or whatever we're doing without hearing phone noises. If you don't know how to silence your phone, you should turn it off. If you don't know how to turn off your phone, you shouldn't own one. I have to make an announcement about turning off phones before Saturday evening's New York Repertory Orchestra concert, and I have to restrain myself from turning it into a rant. Maybe if I post the rant here, I'll make a short and sweet announcement on Saturday.

I don't know what the solution is. Cell phone jammers are illegal. You can't force people to turn them off. All you can do is make these announcements and hope that people get better about following them. But this epidemic of ignorant, self-involved cell phone users at concerts makes me want to reconsider going to New York Philharmonic concerts. I can avoid people talking on their phones during movies by going to sparsely attended showings at out-of-the-way theaters. But I can't avoid idiots at Avery Fisher Hall. Not going to concerts might be my only option. And that's a shame.

A review of this weekend's NY Opera Exchange production of The Magic Flute

It was a lifelong dream of mine to play in the orchestra for Mozart's The Magic Flute, and after this weekend I can check that accomplishment off my list. I had a wonderful time playing one of my favorite operas with a talented cast of singers and musicians.

Here's a review of the production from Voce di meche, an opera blog about chamber opera companies  in New York. I only got to see a few hints of the full production from my seat in the pit, but I think they've captured the spirit of the show. It was such an honor to be involved in the production and I look forward to many more!

Super Bowl party recipe roundup

Because a few of you asked me (or my wife) for recipes from photos I posted:

Smoked salmon dip
This dip was a big hit. We went through almost all of what we made. We served it with pita chips but it would also work well with a sliced and toasted baguette.

Chorizo queso
This dip didn't come out quite as well as I'd hoped. The cheese coagulated quickly and turned stringy and watery. It might have worked better if I'd had a smaller cast iron skillet, and if I'd thought to pre-heat the skillet in the broiler or oven. It was still delicious but it was difficult to get it onto a chip.

Braised brisket sandwiches
These turned out to be one of the best sandwiches I've ever made. I used beef stock instead of beer and brisket instead of short ribs. I browned the meat in a Dutch oven, then browned the vegetables and deglazed the oven with the stock and poured it all into my slow cooker. 8 hours later, I strained the vegetables, added the horseradish sauce and reduced the broth, and sliced the meat against the grain. I put everything back (except the vegetables) into the slow cooker and let it warm until halftime. I didn't make the pickled vegetables, so I just served the sandwiches with a slice of cheddar cheese on a toasted baguette.

Orzo pasta salad
I wanted a starchy side dish for the sandwich but I didn't want to make anything with potatoes. I also wanted to make something from my friend Sarah's massive football recipe collection. I will definitely make this pasta salad again when I need something to bring to a cookout or a party.

Fat Witch Brownies and Oreo cheesecake cookies
We always challenge ourselves to make dishes for the Super Bowl that are in some way associated with the teams playing in the game or the city hosting the game. To celebrate the Super Bowl in New York and New Jersey, my wife made these brownies from New York's Chelsea Market and these Oreo cheesecake cookies. Both of them were amazing.

The game was a blowout but it gave all of us at the party a chance to catch up and talk about things other than Manningface. Congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks and their fans! Maybe now they'll stop complaining about Super Bowl XL.

A few quick thoughts on The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I got to see the movie two days early thanks to a vendor that wants my business. Spoilers after the jump.

The DJ's view of our wedding

http://wp.me/p1GofA-39

Gary was the DJ for our wedding last Saturday and he did a fantastic job. If you're getting married in the Cleveland area or just need a DJ for a party, Gary is your man.

"Petrushka" at the New York Philharmonic: Everyone's a dancer!

Last night's performance of Igor Stravinsky's "Petrushka," a collaboration between the New York Philharmonic and Giants Are Small Productions, was 35 minutes of sheer joy and exuberance. I haven't been that entertained by the Philharmonic and its musicians in weeks (or at least since our previous concert at the beginning of June). The musicians were fully integrated into the ballet, wearing Russian hats and scarves, stomping their feet, drinking tea from a full Russian tea service, miming shots of vodka, dancing and changing seats during the scene changes. At several points the musicians stood up and moved around as they played the music of the Shrovetide Fair. Violist Rebecca Young showed some heretofore unheralded talents, juggling scarves and dancing in the middle of the stage. Maestro Alan Gilbert led the musicians from the podium, but he also played the role of the Magician, who brings to life the puppet characters of Petrushka, Columbine the ballerina, and The Moor. These characters appeared as puppets on screen and on stage, and as live-action characters played by opera singers Anthony Ross Costanzo and Eric Owens, with Sara Mearns as Columbine. In addition, the master puppeteers and scenic designers of Giants Are Small filled the stage with miniature Ferris wheels, snow sled runs, chuck-a-luck wheels, merry-go-rounds, and other rides found at fairs, all filmed and projected live on the screen overhead. I couldn't stop smiling the entire time. It was one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen at Avery Fisher Hall.

The first half of the program, Stravinsky's "The Fairy's Kiss," featured lovely music strongly reminiscent of Tchaikovsky. I had to keep reminding myself that this was not music of that Russian master had he lived another 20 years, but Stravinsky's musical tribute to his forebear. The ballet that accompanied it did not follow the original story of the program, so it was more difficult to follow the action. But it looked lovely, and Giants Are Small provided more miniatures and camera work to add to the story's illustration. The two works had as a connection a brief post-intermission piano interlude by Louis Durey called "Neige" that showed Mearns' transformation from the ballerina of the first half into Columbine for "Petrushka." I'm not sure it was completely necessary, but the music was a refreshing palate cleanser leading into the magnificence that was "Petrushka."

Jazz night at the New York Philharmonic

Three years ago, the New York Philharmonic premiered Wynton Marsalis's Swing Symphony on opening night and I wrote about it in my review of that concert. My memory must be going in my old age, because I remembered little about watching that concert on TV other than thinking the piece was good but nothing remarkable. When I saw tonight's concert on my schedule, featuring a variety of jazz and jazz-like pieces by Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Copland along with Marsalis's work, I thought that it would be great to see Mark Nuccio (acting principal clarinet) play the Copland Clarinet Concerto and that the Marsalis piece would be interesting to hear live. But that was it. I wasn't prepared for just how much I'd enjoy actually hearing the work in person.

The concert opened with Igor Stravinsky's Ragtime for 11 instruments, which sounded like a Scott Joplin piece as translated by a Russian living in Paris writing avant-garde music at the end of the First World War. I liked the odd twangy sound of the cimbalom, not a typical orchestral instrument but one that fit right in with Stravinsky's unique sound. Next came Dmitri Shostakovich's Tahiti Trot, a piece that we would better know as "Tea For Two." There were some giggles from the audience as the familiar melody passed from one group of instruments to the other, from harp and celeste to winds to brass to strings and finally to the whole orchestra in unison. Assistant Conductor Case Scaglione was right at home running the orchestra through these two vastly different yet similarly jazzy works.

Mark Nuccio took the stage for Aaron Copland's Concerto for Clarinet and Strings, composed in 1950 for Benny Goodman. His playing was sublime, tender and fluid in the first movement and fast and furious in the frenetic second movement. Alan Gilbert did a fine job of managing the orchestra in the first movement though I wished the strings could have been softer in the second movement so that the rapid-fire notes of the clarinet would have come through more clearly.

Wynton Marsalis's Swing Symphony was the featured work on the second half of the program. It took a few extra minutes to get the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra all set up. They occupied the middle of the stage, with saxophones, trombones and trumpets, plus upright bass, piano and drums, with the rest of the orchestra surrounding them. There was a larger than usual battery of percussion at the back of the stage, and throughout the piece the Philharmonic percussion section made full use of it. Marsalis balanced the jazz orchestra's involvement with the rest of the orchestra. There were sections that only involved the jazz musicians taking solos, and in other places they sat while the Philharmonic played. But most of the work had both groups playing together, bouncing melodies off each other and sharing lines. Oboes picked up a fugal subject that the solo clarinetist in the band introduced. Concertmaster Glen Dicterow took a solo turn, as did principal cellist Carter Brey. And each member of the jazz orchestra got a chance to show their talents, including Mr. Marsalis, which had me sitting in my seat thinking "that's Wynton freaking Marsalis playing in the same room as me!!" Yes, I was more than a little excited by this piece. My favorite parts were the Philharmonic percussionists in their white ties and tails, playing bongos, Cuban rhythms on drums, or just clapping rhythmically in places. You don't know what you're missing until you've seen the Philharmonic timpanist put down his mallets and clap along with the other members of the percussion section. I think the Swing Symphony works much better as a live concert piece than as a recording or on video, but I would love to hear the piece again, even recorded, just to hear what I might have missed.

The seven movements of the work (expanded from the five performed on opening night in 2010 to include more recent jazz elements) took the listener through the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and New Orleans to the big band sound of the '40s to bebop and Coltrane and modern jazz. And the conceit worked extremely well. I could imagine that I was in a New Orleans bar, then a jazz club in the Village, then (of all things) a big band concert back home in Johnstown, PA. The audience applauded at the end of each movement, and it didn't seem at all unusual for a concert like that. The spirit of jazz seemed to have taken hold of everyone in the room. I listened to most of the piece with a huge smile on my face, enjoying every minute. Mr. Gilbert appeared to be enjoying himself as well, smiling when he made a cue or started another section with a new jaunty tempo. The members of the jazz orchestra, dressed in suits and long ties as opposed to the Philharmonic in their tuxedoes, had their own ways of communicating with each other. They whispered to each other during the piece and Mr. Marsalis occasionally leaned over to groove along with his drummer. At the end of the piece both Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Marsalis received long, loud ovations from the audience, as did the jazz orchestra. The jazz group favored us with an encore, which started with a solo from Mr. Marsalis followed by each member of the group. When the bass player finished his solo he gestured toward the Philharmonic's bass section. We couldn't tell what was going on at first, but then one of the Philharmonic's bassists did his own pizzicato solo. This led to a few minutes of dueling bass solos between the jazz orchestra's bassist and the Philharmonic's bassist. I haven't seen anything like that since the last time I was in New Orleans, and that's not even close to the same thing.

It was quite possibly the most fun I've had at the New York Philharmonic in years, and I always enjoy the concertgoing experience there. I haven't seen an audience reaction to a piece like that in a long time. It's so exciting to see that. We're going back at the end of the month for two Stravinsky ballets (with the help of the geniuses at Giants Are Small) and we can't wait to see what the Philharmonic has in store then.

Jeanne Cooper passes away

I was saddened this morning to hear of the passing of Jeanne Cooper, star of "The Young And The Restless" on CBS. My mother has watched the show since it started in 1973, and Ms. Cooper had starred as Katherine Chancellor almost since the beginning. I grew up watching the show with my mother, at first during the summer when I was home from school, then sometimes at night when we would record that day's show and watch it on the VCR. About a decade later, my then-wife (who is also a longtime fan) would watch the show on VHS or on our DVR. So I spent at least 20 years off and on watching Ms. Cooper on the show. My mother said she feels like she's lost a member of our family, and I feel the same way.

A few quick thoughts on Friday night's New York Philharmonic concert

On Friday night, we attended the New York Philharmonic's performance of Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 and Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 6. Pinchas Zukerman was the soloist, with Christoph Eschenbach, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, conducting.

Bruch's concerto has long been one of my favorite works, but I don't think I'd heard it performed live until Friday evening. Zukerman was of course outstanding and Eschenbach kept the orchestra out of his way. Some of the tempi were a little slower than I like but that relaxed pace helped in the romantic second movement. Zukerman received a long ovation after the energetic finale. I've seen him perform once or twice before with the Philharmonic and I think I enjoyed this appearance more than the others. I'd heard him play some of Bach's "Brandenburg" concertos a few years ago but I think his tone is better suited to Bruch's work than Bach's.

After the intermission, Eschenbach led the orchestra through a powerful reading of Bruckner's Sixth Symphony. The horns in particular stood out, as their fanfares were wholly distinguishable from those of the trumpets and trombones. I enjoyed Principal Oboe Liang Wang's work in the Adagio movement, and the strings and winds were crisp and forceful in the scherzo. Eschenbach led with a moderate amount of movement on the podium, using his upper body and keeping his feet mostly in place on the podium. I left Avery Fisher Hall humming some of the brass fanfares from the piece, and they stuck with me over the weekend.

From last week: quick thoughts on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Spoilers ahead, so beware if you haven't seen it yet...

I loved revisiting this universe. From the opening showing the dwarves at the height of their power, to hints of Smaug, to Hobbiton, Gandalf, Frodo(!), and the elves, it was great to be back. I especially enjoyed all the musical cues. All the themes Howard Shore used in the Lord of the Rings saga came back here, along with new music for the dwarves at Erebor and The Company. I grinned with sheer joy whenever I heard a musical cue for the elves, the eagles or the Hobbits theme.

I knew it was going to be a long movie with far more material than we needed, like Radagast, the backstory with Azog the Pale Orc, hints about the Necromancer, and so on. I don't care. I didn't mind that extra footage at all, and in fact actually enjoyed it. The 3D was better than I expected, but it didn't add that much to the movie. I started to get a headache near the end, but I may have been sitting too close (2nd row from the center aisle). I'll sit further back the next time I see it. Also, I saw it in regular 24FPS 3D, not the 48FPS version that some have said looks too real. What I saw looked good enough to me. I'd be fine with a 2D version, in fact.

Peter Jackson made these movies for LOTR fans, and as a huge LOTR fan I have a well-established bias. If you loved the first trilogy then I think you're going to enjoy this movie. If you didn't see the original trilogy or were bored, The Hobbit isn't going to change your opinion. 

Rush might have sounded great, but I couldn't tell

The Barclays Center in Brooklyn had a long and twisting path from dream to reality. It took years just to sort through the lawsuits designed to stall or prevent its construction, then once construction began, those of us who live in Park Slope and Fort Greene endured traffic jams, noise, and dust. Finally, late last month, this new arena opened just blocks from my apartment. Monday night's Rush concert was my first opportunity to see the arena and hear a band I've enjoyed for years (and seen live once before, in 1994).

I liked the massive entranceway, with its high ceiling and what should be a gorgeous view of the basketball court as you walk in. The wide concourses looked inviting and the Brooklyn food vendors beckoned with local options like burgers and Fatty Cue barbeque. As we took the escalator to the upper level, I gawked at the club level's carpeted lounge. As we found our seats, while I didn't like the narrow aisles and gaps between rows, I loved the sight lines. The steeply raked upper deck meant that we had an excellent view of the stage below and to the left of us, with no heads in front of us blocking our view. I can only imagine how good the view would be for basketball or, dare I say it, hockey. And I really enjoyed the convenience of walking to and from the venue, a first for me.

Unfortunately, the sound in the upper level was absolutely awful. The bass thrummed throughout the arena, but the notes themselves were so muffled and lost within the space that I sometimes couldn't tell what Geddy Lee was playing. Alex Lifeson's guitar didn't fare much better. Neal Peart's drums sounded great during his solos, except when the bass thrumming shook the entire building and covered him up. The worst part were Geddy Lee's vocals. I'm not kidding when I say that I could barely understand a word he sang or spoke. Most of the set list consisted of newer material that I didn't know, and since I couldn't really hear any of it, I found myself checking Twitter and catching up on the presidential debate. The free wi-fi worked much better than the sound, by the way. Even when the band played songs I know by heart, like "The Spirit of Radio" or "Subdivisions," I couldn't pretend to sing along because I couldn't follow the vocals.

I've never been more disappointed in an arena show. Rush is an amazingly talented band that's been playing for 40 years, and their songs got completely lost in the Barclays Center. I don't know if it was a failure of the band's sound technicians or the arena's acoustics, but something was terribly off. I'm going to wait a while before I go to another concert at this arena.

Bach, Schoenberg, and Mozart: 3 German-speaking guys walk into a concert hall...

I hadn't heard any of the works on Saturday night's New York Philharmonic program live in concert before. Of the three, I was most familiar with Bach's Piano Concerto in D minor, which soloist Emanuel Ax played to perfection. I enjoyed the balance between the piano and the strings, which brought out harmonies from the second violins and the violas. Ax had not played this concerto before, an amazing fact when you consider the scope of his career. 

Prior to performing Arnold Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, Ax and music director Alan Gilbert spoke to the audience about the work and twelve-tone compositions in general. Gilbert said that 12-tone music didn't need to be frightening. He said that while some composers had taken the concept and applied it to their works with mediocre results, it was possible to find beauty in this type of music. Ax and Gilbert then highlighted some of the key melodies in the concerto, as guideposts for the audience. I've seen Gilbert do this sort of talk before pieces in the past. I think it does help an audience that's likely to be unfamiliar with a work and perhaps apprehensive about it. I was able to follow the structure of the piece and identify the elements that Ax and Gilbert had noted. But I had a difficult time "getting into" the work. Without a tonal melodic frame of reference, I didn't have anything to latch onto and follow on a deeper musical level. Near the end of the piece, my mind wandered and after a few minutes I realized I hadn't been paying attention to the music at all. I don't want to dismiss atonal or 12-tone music completely, but it's just not for me.

After intermission, the Philharmonic closed the program with Mozart's Symphony No. 36, "Linz." I adore Mozart's music, so one of his greatest symphonies was just the palate cleanser I needed. The orchestra and Gilbert turned in a sparkling performance. I wouldn't say they found something new in their interpretation of the music, but I'm OK with that. Listening to the New York Philharmonic play Mozart in concert is like listening to Bob Dylan sing "Like A Rolling Stone," or Pavarotti sing "Nessun dorma." It's the greatest orchestra in the country playing music they know inside and out, with a skilled music director on the podium. I think you take that performance every chance you get.

All-streaming music, all the time? Not for me, yet.

Lifehacker's Whitson Gordon wonders whether we as music consumers are ready to give up our personal music collections and move to streaming services full-time. He discusses the pros and cons of Spotify and Rdio vs. iTunes or a MP3 collection on a mobile device. His conclusion is that the streaming services aren't quite there yet.  Between missing artists and awkward handling of local tracks that they don't own, getting everything you might want from a streaming service isn't possible yet.

I don't have an opinion about any of the streaming services. I still have two CD racks in my apartment that I haven't decided what to do with yet. I haven't taken any of them off the shelf in at least a couple of years. Some of them haven't moved off the shelf since I moved into this apartment four years ago. And while I haven't taken an official inventory, it's possible that I have twice as much music on my computer as I have on those shelves. But I hang onto these CDs, especially the rock CDs, as if they're some sort of lifeline. I have this irrational fear that if I sell the CDs and keep the music on my computer, that someday the RIAA will track me down and make me pay exorbitant rights fees for my own music. (I wouldn't get rid of the classical CDs, in some cases because of the excellent liner notes, and in others because they're rare or more meaningful to me.) If I'm not ready to part with my actual CDs, the physical representation of the sound, I'm definitely not ready to erase the 100+ GB of music files on my hard drive and rely on the Internet to provide my entertainment.

Let's try this again in five years. Maybe by then the various services will sort out this mess and ubiquitous Internet connections will make my computer's hard drive obsolete.

About this Lance Armstrong news...

Ryan Hudson at SBNation has some thoughtful commentary on Lance Armstrong's decision not to continue fighting the USADA's doping charges against him. Go read his piece, then come back. Or don't; I won't be upset.

I'd long held the opinion that Armstrong was clean, largely because no one was able to pin a beyond-a-shadow-of-doubt positive drug test result on him. I saw the continued efforts by French news organizations and anti-doping agencies as witch hunts, or people with axes to grind. But as more positive tests took down other riders (Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Alberto Contador)  and the drumbeat against Armstrong continued, I stopped thinking about Armstrong's claims of innocence. If he was guilty, they'd eventually find something, even if the statute of limitations had expired or the positive tests came decades after his Tour victories. Well, here we are. By essentially pleading "no contest" Armstrong will lose his Tour wins (despite  tenuous USADA authority to remove them) and be banned from a sport from which he retired years ago. It doesn't matter. At this point I assume everyone in cycling is on something. I assume it about all sports, actually. Humans are not meant to ride 100 miles a day for three weeks. What difference does it make if they're riding while on EPO or extra-oxygenated blood or horse testosterone? How is that any different from having a faster bike or a better organized team?

I give up. Everyone is on something. Every athlete wants a competitive advantage, and if it's not available legally then they'll get it illegally. And what's stopping them? Everyone else is doing it.

I'll tell you who's riding clean: I am. I ride my bike three or four times a week on water and Clif bars. I used to idolize Lance Armstrong and imagine him riding up the hill in front of me, "dancing in his pedals" as one of the Tour commentators once said of him. But that was years ago. Now, I don't need his inspiration. He doesn't need to be my hero. And he shouldn't be yours either. None of our star athletes should be.

The Udvar-Hazy Center

Last weekend we were back in the DC metro area for a family visit and a side trip out to Dulles, VA, to the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center. This hangar-like building houses many of the large planes, helicopters, and spacecraft that the Smithsonian can't fit in the main museum on the National Mall. In particular I was excited to see the Space Shuttle Discovery, as I've been an astronomy and space exploration geek since I was a kid.

What struck me about the Shuttle is that it's big, but not that big. It looks enormous on TV and in photos. It's about the size of a medium-size passenger jet, like a commuter plane. It dominates the room in which it's housed, but it's small enough that I wondered at how NASA had crammed all of the electronics and mission equipment into the spacecraft. Even without seeing the interior, I could tell that astronauts really didn't have much room to maneuver inside it.

The other remarkable thing about the orbiter was its exterior. While the underside was covered with ceramic heat shield tiles, the upper parts of the shuttle looked like a patchwork of white quilts. For some reason I'd assumed that the ship was metallic. I hadn't realized that its upper surfaces are covered with heat-resistant fabric instead of metal. Of course, a spaceship doesn't have to be completely metallic. As long as it's airtight, you can cover the outside with fabric. Space is a vacuum.

As I walked through the museum and looked at the history of human flight, I marveled at the engineering feats it took to get us from the Wright brothers' plane to spaceflight in less than 60 years. There's a display of different aircraft engines from before WWI through the end of WWII. I hadn't considered what early mechanics and engineers had accomplished with what were little more than automobile engines adapted for airplanes.

In addition to the many photos I took of Discovery, I took far too many photos of some of my favorite planes, like the SR-71, the F-105 Thunderchief, the Concorde, and the "Enola Gay." They didn't have a Messerschmitt Me-262, one of my favorite early jet fighters, but they did have the Me-163 Komet, as well as the F-86 and MiG-15, two planes I remember well from days spent playing "Chuck Yeager's Air Combat Simulator." And I couldn't help thinking about the pointlessness of the inclusion of the X-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a plane that has yet to enter service. It's been in development for 20 years and if drone technology continues to evolve, it might never be finished. It's already a museum piece.