USO Records Crime Fiction

Last night the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra recorded an original film score by David Bashwiner for the soon-to-be-released independent film Crime Fiction, directed by Will Slocombe. The picture above shows 5 timpani used for an excerpt called "Push" which is a timpani solo scored to a fight between the main character (a troubled author named James Cooper) and his girlfriend. I won't spoil the fun for you, but the title of this excerpt gives a good explanation as to what happens in the scene. Keep an eye out for the movie!

Shostakovich #11

Tomorrow night, we will be performing Shostakovich's 11th Symphony as a continuation of the Russian revolution theme that was presented last year when we performed Battleship Potemkin with the Eisenstein film. Shostakovich's 11th symphony was the first symphony by Shostakovich that I purchased many years ago (the Jaarvi version), and it is still one of my favorites. There are several things to note regarding the percussion parts: the piece calls for one snare drum, but I have found that most recordings (I have approximately 7 at this point) double the snare drum part...a wise idea when competing against the orchestra in the middle of the second movement. We are using chimes that are one octave below the normal rack chimes. The work calls for a G, Bb, B, C and D. I managed to find some heavier chime mallets at Lone Star Percussion that should allow my colleague Jim Holland to obtain more volume and cut through the orchestra in the final measures of the symphony.

There are mistakes in the snare drum and timpani parts that are delivered in the rental set. These are rhythmic errors that are not properly noted during repeated measures. The chime part delivered is also very incorrect, but a "corrected" version has been printed and should come with the rental set delivered. I will post these corrections here when I have a chance to look through the parts.

One note of humor: it seems that the woodwind parts have been well marked during the loud percussion sections. I was looking at a clarinet part and saw "earplugs in!" penciled in various places. That may be the most useful marking I've ever seen in any part.

Ned Rorem's Eleven Studies

Last Sunday we concluded our season at the University of Chicago New Music Ensemble on a major chord! In just a small handful of rehearsals we put together Ned Rorem's Eleven Studies for Eleven Players. The highlight of this, as a percussionist, is the sixth movement, Invention for Battery. Although the percussion notation is a wee bit difficult to get used to, the movement moves along experimenting several new percussion idioms. I found the most interesting thing of this movement to be the rhythmic games that Rorem plays between the two players and now intricate the composite rhythms are.

Elmhurst Symphony Performs Mahler's Second Symphony

I performed Gustav Mahler's Resurrection Symphony last saturday with the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. This is the second year in a row I've done the same piece of music, and the second time I've played the second timpani part.

The performance was fairly interesting and director Stephen Alltop kept the compact chorus and orchestra balanced well at the end. Some highlights of this performance for me were getting all the tuning changes right in the third movement (last time I think I missed the first high F), watching the coordination of the off-stage trumpet, horn and percussion parts (it's always interesting to see how this goes in performance!), and finally being able to use a Fred Hinger-like forearm roll in the last 17 or so measures.

Battleship Potemkin

Last weekend the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Barbara Schubert, performed Battleship Potemkin in real-time accompanying the film. Battleship Potemkin is a film created by Sergei Eisenstein in 1926 to commemorate the 1905 Battleship Potemkin uprising. In our performance, we gave the U.S. premiere of the film with the original score by Edmund Meisel -- apparently most of the scoring in the DVD formats is music added by various entities to "sound Russian," but isn't the original music.

The music is very progressive and several sections consist of repetetive (almost minimalistic in some way) passages that build in accordance with the film. The end sequence is nothing short of grueling for the timpanist as three one-bar phrases are repeated over the course of some 10 minutes gradually making a crescendo. To some extent this wouldn't be so bad, but the volume of rolls and playing throughout the first 63 minutes of the work is very tiring itself!

As for the movie, there are several moving scenes. The most memorable, and that which has made it's way into other movies following Potemkin is the scene at the steps of Odessa which depicts the slaughter of innocent civilians by the military. I was amazed at how progressive Eisenstein was for his time. Hopefully sometime soon the original film score can be recorded for the DVD. It is much more appropriate than what exists now.

Happy Birthday, Orchestra Hall!

Happy 100th birthday, Orchestra Hall. You've been a good home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and seen the likes of Frederick Stock, Fritz Reiner, Leonard Bernstein, Sir Georg Solti, and many other wonderful musicians!

Up Next: Satie and Kodaly

Today, while driving to a dress rehearsal, an interpretation of Eric Satie's Gymnopédies #3 was on WFMT The performance (which was the arrangement by Debussy) was delivered in very slow and deliberate manner. The performance turned out to be a live performance given by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on 25 March 1960. I've never heard a more moving rendition of the Satie, and there are many excellent performances of it in existence.

The broadcast of the Satie was then followed by the live performance of Galanta Dances Zoltán Kodály. It's obvious that Reiner was a master of any score he chose to perform, and both these recordings should squash any ideas that Reiner's interpretations were "cold." It's my personal opinion that the adage "There can be no expression without technique" is a very fitting description of the CSO during Reiner's tenure.

XXX Blooper

The movie XXX with Vin Diesel features an interesting blooper. Near the middle of the movie Diesel's character Xander Cage is kidnapped by his American operations director. There is a scene from inside an orchestra pit showing a timpanist rolling near the center of the timpani with marimba mallets. In reality, we use special timpani mallets (felt heads, not yard as used on a marimba) and play at the edge of the drum giving the instrument is sonorous quality.

The Tell-Tale Heart

I'm still working on getting all my analog recordings of performances online. Here's another: The Tell-Tale Heart, based on Edgar Allen Poe's poem of the same name, by Ilya Levinson. Levinson called for a saw blade in this piece. I picked up a large circular saw blade at Ace Hardware. The saw blade worked well mounted on a cymbal stand and was exactly what the composer intended to hear. However, I give one bit of advice: be very, very careful when you reach over to mute the sound. Ouch!

Dust Repellent Vinyl -- 317X

I was just reading the liner notes of my Fritz Reiner/Chicago Symphony Orchestra recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in G (JMCXR-0017, originally LSC2364). I've been taking many of my CD's and encoding them into MP3 format. This recording happened to be one of the XRCD's that JVC released in 2002. It has many of the original liner notes from the old RCA Victor recordings done throughout the 1950's and 1960's (by my estimation, the best recordings ever made). Anyway...I found this in the liner notes...

"MIRACLE SURFACE" this record contains the new revolutionary anti-static ingredient, 317X, which repels dust, helps prevent surface noise, and helps insure faithful sound reproduction."

Wouldn't it be nice to see that used on CD's if possible? I'd do anything to have less dust build-up on my discs. I'd even go so far as to say it'd be nice to see scratch-resistant discs developed!

Tone and Concerto for Pizzicato Piano

I have added some recordings of a couple performances last winter. Listen to Tone for solo vibraphone (performed by Yours Truly) by Ja Young Choi. Then check out Tan Dun's Concerto for Pizzicato Piano and Ten Instruments. Lisa Kaplan of Eighth Blackbird offered an excellent interpretation with members of the University of Chicago New Music Ensemble. I was lucky enough to be the percussionist in this performance. The Tan Dun is one of the more interesting new music pieces I've done to date, and it really required a good effort on the part of the ensemble and soloist to effectively perform.

Pelléas et Mélisande

As a favor, I agreed to do the Fauré and Sibelius Pelléas et Mélisande (opus 80 and opus 46, respectively). It's interesting to see the difference and similiarities of these works. I'm not sure having both pieces on one concert is an effective programming (just because the names are the same doesn't mean the listener will enjoy it!), but I do enjoy both pieces. The story of Pelléas et Mélisande is here.

A funny thing: I learned a while back that some of the older timpanists (Fred Hinger or Cloyd Duff, I can't remember which) would initial the back of their parts. This allowed them to see when they performed the piece in the past. I started doing this trick a while back and didn't think much of it, but when coming to the Sibelius timpani part, my initials and date were on it from 02/1998! It's been a long six years.