What'd you say?

Steppin' Out; Tony Bennett

In the summer of 1995, my older sister K. threw off the shackles of employment in order to go back to school for a year. This brought sadness to the rest of the Apland clan as we had come to love the quirky little cottage that she lived in out in the country. But, she had stepped up to the plate, aiming her bat to the northwest toward Grand Forks, North Dakota. So to let her know that we “had her back”, we all arrived in Rochester, Minnesota, in time to see the last box get stashed in the U-Haul. Isn’t that horrible? We can’t help it. Tardiness runs deep in the domesticated Apland veins. We like to joke that our ancestors came over on the Juneflower.

I rode with K. in her truck to North Dakota. She put me in charge of CD’s. I don’t remember any of the other CD’s that I played on my discman. But we definitely listened to Tony Bennett’s “Steppin’ Out”. How do I know that? Because we couldn’t figure out some of the words that he sang on the song “Top Hot, White Tie And Tails”.

I’m puttin’ on my top hat

Tyin’ up my white tie

Brushin’ off my tails

I’m dudin’ up my shirt front

Puttin’ in the shirt studs

Polishin’ my nails

I’m steppin’ out, my dear

To breathe ???????????????

That simply reeks with class

And I trust that you’ll excuse my dust

When I step on the gas……

We listened to that same two seconds of music fifty times over the course of ten miles of Interstate 94 just west of Saint Cloud, Minnesota. We played it loud, we played it soft, we slowed down the truck, we sped up the truck, we rolled down the windows, we stopped in the middle of the phrase, we started in the middle of the phrase … nothing gave us a clue. Every single time it sounded like “in that pig’s ear”.

I’m steppin’ out, my dear

To breathe in that pig’s ear

That simply reeks with class

That’s not the old spit ‘n polish Irving Berlin savoir faire that I remember. Who would have ever thought that “in that pig’s ear” could rhyme with “an atmosphere”?

“Steppin’ Out” was Mr. Bennett’s homage to the refinement, sophistication, sparkle, luster, sheen and shine of Fred Astaire. The album earned Mr. Bennett a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance in 1994. A music video of “Steppin’ Out With My Baby” got some MTV air-time, awakening a young generation to the musical artistry of two masters.

I only know the work of Fred Astaire from one place: He voiced the narrator, the mailman, in the 1970 classic animated Christmas special “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town”. “That’s Entertainment” parts one and two both featured Mr. Astaire, but only in clips. Someday, I will have to watch one of his movies. I don’t have any of his CD’s. But if I did, I bet I would be able to understand the words.

Credits: To Fred Astaire, Mr. One-More-Time. You inspire the urge to “nail it, just give me one for chance.”

Camp food

Bohuslav Martinu, composer; La Revue de Cuisine; Camerata de Geneve

In the Lutheran Church, we label “church camp” as “bible camp”. My first year at bible camp occurred the summer after the seventh grade. Camp NeSoDak (think Northeast South Dakota) sits on the shores of Lake Enemy Swim and has fairly rustic accommodations. My mom and the mothers of M.M. and D.G. packed us up with suitcases, sleeping bags, bug repellent and twenty dollars to spend at the canteen then stuffed us into Pastor B.’s car. We left on a Sunday in June after church for a week of swimming, hiking, worship and food.

On one afternoon, the camp counselors took us up an old fire tower out in the middle of a forest and it seems like we could see for a hundred miles or more. One evening, they took some of us halfway around the lake where we had hamburgers and a bonfire. Right before going to bed, at an appointed time with the kids who stayed behind at the camp-site, we yelled the Lord’s Prayer back and forth across the lake; we shouted the first two words, they shouted the next four, we took the four after that, and so on. We slept under the stars that night, just a few yards away from the water.

After lunch, in the dining room, on the day before we left to go home, somebody started a chant: WE WANT A KITCHEN BAND!! WE WANT A KITCHEN BAND!! WE WANT A KITCHEN BAND!! Soon, the three women who had been preparing all of our food during the week burst through the kitchen door, each of them banging on a pan with a metal spoon right in time with the chant. Then somebody started us off singing…

Oh, when the saints

Go marching in

Oh, when the saints go marching in.

How I long to be in that number

When the saints go marching in.

I don’t remember how many songs we sang after that one. The cooks kept playing their instruments; up this aisle and down that. We stomped our feet and banged on the tables. When we ran out of songs, our three culinary heroes stood up on top of one of the tables and bowed to all of us. And that was how we thanked them for all of the food preparation for the week. I often wondered if we could have gotten away with that at home.

My friend J.F. from the Marine Band recruited me in the formation of a sextet, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, cello, violin and piano, that would perform “La Revue de Cuisine” on one of the Marine Band Chamber Recitals in 2000. Bohuslav Martinu originally wrote this music as a jazz ballet in 1927. From the ten movements in the original dance production, Mr. Martinu formed a four-movement suite that tells the ballet story a bit more succinctly. The Charleston and the Tango identify this composition as a 1920’s, almost European, art deco piece de resistance. The synopsis of the ballet comes across as very “Be Our Guest”-ish, with the marriage of Pot and Lid with the interfering of Twirling Stick and Broom. You can read about it here.

I went one more year to bible camp; this time to Outlaw Ranch in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The following year Mom and Dad sent me to South Dakota All-State Music camp. My biggest concern during “camp” years was bullying. I always felt that I easily wore the target. A part of me followed sheer logic: I should be safe at bible camp. Who’s ever heard of a Christian bully? They exist all the same. My younger sister D. was very brave. She went to music camp and faced the “music bullies” before going to bible camp. D., you’re my hero.

Credits: To Mom, and moms all over the world, for the cooking of the food. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, makes better potato salad than my Mom.

A Shakespeare ballet

Sergei Prokofiev, composer; Romeo and Juliet; Kirov Orchestra, Leningrad; Valery Gergiev, conducting

I’ve never seen a production of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. We had to read it at some point during high school, but I don’t remember when. I don’t have a weakness for this type of Shakespeare. I prefer the comedies and the historical plays. Hamlet captures my attention. Probably because I’m one-quarter Danish.

Now, I have to back-pedal and say that I have seen Charles Gounod’s opera “Romeo et Juliette”. Does that count? The librettist wrote the words in French. Well, then no, I think. And we’ll just leave that there shall we?

Sergei Prokofiev wrote music for a ballet of “Romeo and Juliet” in 1935 for the Kirov Ballet. The first performance occurred on December 30 in 1938 in Brno, Czechoslovakia. Often, Mr. Prokofiev’s music doesn’t offer immediate appeal to the layman classical music lover. But, in this case, an expressive score delivers the perfect romantic tone to, admittedly, one of literature’s most passionate love stories.

Lamentably, I had a difficult time finding a copy of this CD cover. I don’t know that I have a more striking CD cover on my iPod. It features conductor Valery Gergiev, Artistic Director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, with the beautiful Mariinsky Theatre interior as the backdrop.

Oddly enough, when Mr. Prokofiev and his artistic friends set out on this Shakespearean venture, they planned a “happy” ending to the synopsis. Can you imagine? It would have the same improbable effect as:

Scarlett: Rhett, Rhett! Rhett … if you go, where shall I go, what shall I do?

Rhett: Frankly, my dear, since you put it that way, let’s hitch up. Hawaii, here we come!

Credits: To William Shakespeare, for “Hamlet”. For some of the most beautiful English ever written and spoken, and for “Henry V”. For the romance of one hundred fifty-four sonnets, and “King Lear”.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Easter Peanuts

Tchaikovsky: 1812 - Marche Slave; Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer; Russian Easter Festival Overture; Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra; Neeme Jarvi, conducting

I don’t think that I could claim a favorite Peanuts character. Each personality varies so sharply from the others. Of course, everybody loves Charlie Brown. You’re supposed to. He’s the master of ceremonies. He’s the “every man”. Very few people in the world can’t relate to Charlie Brown.

The others, though, possess traits and foibles much too exact for broader appeal. Not everyone can hang with Lucy’s crabby exterior. Not everyone can cope with Sally’s hang-ups with school. Snoopy shuns responsibility of any kind to live the “Walter Mitty” life. Schroeder’s preoccupation with music almost makes him a single issue character, except that he plays catcher on the baseball team. Peppermint Patty can have low self-esteem one moment followed by unbounded and unfounded self-confindence. Frieda loves cats … and where do you go from there?

I like Linus. Yeah, the blanket … I know. All of the characters are smart. But we have in Linus an intellectual, who has the same amount of intelligence as the rest of the gang, but has thought things through a little further.

“Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?!”

“Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights, please.”

In the comic strip, Linus proves to hold the gift of prophecy. He philosophizes beyond his second-grade level. And, as an authority on “Queen snakes” and “chicken birds”, he has acquainted himself with nature and comes across as probably the “greenest” temperament in the strip.

Charles Schultz’s genius with Linus lines up here: with intellectual property can come an “ill at ease” with religion. There can’t be just one guy that brings presents and candy for all the good little children only once a year. Thus, he banks his beliefs in accessory “messiahs”: The Great Pumpkin and The Easter Beagle. And his convictions in each festive entity spike the closer he comes to the holiday that they embody.

I recalled today one of the strips where Linus stares out the window for a while, gets an idea then hurries to Lucy. “Why don’t we round up the gang and go out to sing pumpkin carols?” Oh, good grief.

Christmas and Easter stand at even par, as far as religious significance is concerned. Easter might even have a mite stronger emotional charge, what with the death of Christ on Good Friday. But the secular aspect of Easter doesn’t make a dent in the secular free-for-all of Christmas. I can only think of “Easter Parade” by Irving Berlin and “Peter Cottontail” by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins for secular Easter songs.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakoff wrote his “Russian Easter Festival Overture” between 1887 and 1888 and programmed its premiere in St. Petersburg; oddly enough, in December of 1888, not at Easter. The tunes used in this fifteen-minute long masterwork come from the Russian Orthodox liturgy, reproducing the solemnity and mystery of the evening of Passion Saturday and the jubilant celebrations of Easter Sunday morning.

Perhaps the greatest expression of Easter morning sentiment comes from the “Hallelujah” chorus of “Messiah” fame by G.F. Handel. Cousin W. has pled the case that I post one of her favorite renditions of this chestnut. She immediately voiced her concern that it may show too much irreverence for Easter Sunday. I think it shows too much irreverence on any day. So I might as well post it today. It gets my younger sister’s shoulders rolling.

Credits: To Linus, for his ability to draw security from an object that never had any security to offer in the first place.

The scary movie

Princess Leia's Theme; The Boston Pops Orchestra; John Williams, composer; John Williams, conducting

I have never liked scary movies. Or horror films. Or monster or ghost flicks. Even when they’re on the comedic side, like “Ghostbusters”. Not that I’m jumpy. But the imagery can linger … for quite a while. I have a fertile imagination. The mental movies I can create at bedtime, from the loitering visual impressions of even the minutest hair-raising motion picture experience, regularly win Oscars for “Let’s scare the bejeezus out of Erik.”

I like to tell the following story. Once, when I was still in elementary school, Mom and Dad went out for the evening and put K. in charge. K. thumbed through the television guide to see what we could watch on TV. “Channel three is showing ‘The Birds’. Let’s watch that.” Well, why not? What can be wrong with watching a movie about birds?

Two hours later, K. led a petrified brother up the stairs, down the hall, into his room and shoved him into bed. But just before she turned off the light, she opened up the window and threw bread crumbs on him.

Okay, that didn’t really happen. I have a fertile imagination.

I don’t know where I got it in my head that “Star Wars” was a scary movie. I suppose it was the notion that it happened out in space, where Stars are, and that some type of War had erupted, involving sinister robots, disturbing aliens and some black-cloaked, magic-wielding mouth-breather. It kind of creeped me out.

My friend Steve L., who was very brave, by the way, went to see this forbidding film and couldn’t stop talking about how good it was. Eventually I had to ask him to tell me all about it … in the daylight … when it was safe. So, he laid it all out, in as much detail as a fifth-grader is capable. Which is a lot. Hold it, Steve. Stop. I’m losing you. Jump to the scary part. “What?” Tell me the scary part. “What scary part?” Isn’t this a horror movie of some kind? “Dude. It’s a space movie. The ugly old witch in ‘Snow White’ is scarier than anything in ‘Star Wars’.” Oh. “Sheez, you’re a weird kid.”

Two years later, when the studio released it again, a few weeks before the premiere of “The Empire Strikes Back”, I manned up. Steve, D. and I went to see “Star Wars”. Need I say that it was awesome?

Inside one of the finest scores for any movie is one of the most exquisite melodies I think I’ve ever heard. “Princess Leia’s Theme” never fails to charm. My iPod is richer for the presence of this track.

Credits: To Alfred Hitchcock, for “The Birds.” And “North By Northwest”. And “Vertigo”. And “Psycho”. And “Rear Window”. And “Dial M for Murder”. And “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. And “To Catch A Thief”.

Grandma's house

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Requiem, K626; Vienna Philharmoniker; Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsoperchor; Sir Georg Solti, conducting

Grandma A. lived in town. She had a big house that sat on two lots just around the corner from the main street. Make no mistake, Grandma loved to garden. Most of her property, the parts that weren’t house, garage, driveway and boulevard, were gardens. She had a vegetable garden on the east part of her little acreage, but most everywhere else comprised of flowers.

All kinds of flowers. Tall flowers, short flowers, skinny flowers, fat flowers, pretty flowers, ugly flowers. Flowers that peeped up at you. Flowers that scowled down at you. Flowers that gathered around the wishing well. Flowers that peered inside the window to see what the inside flowers were doing. Flowers that guarded her garage door. And flowers that saluted you as you walked up to her front door.

When you walked through her back door, into the house, you could see her gardening clothes, her gardening tools and her gardening hat. The rest of the house contained vestiges of a long life. Old pictures in old frames. Plates that stood on a shelf just below the ceiling around her dining room. Lamps with outlandish lampshades. Photograph books. Quilts. Antiques here. Antiques there. And always, always, always, a little knitting, sewing or craft project.

For a while, it seemed that Mom and Dad had to attend a series of funerals, and whenever they did, they would drop my sister D. and I off at Grandma’s. And we didn’t mind a bit. On any given day of the year, inside or outside, a grandchild could wander through a wonderland of pathways and pictures, plants and plates, pansies and prairie grass.

Eventually, D. and I went to our first funeral. I think it was for our second cousin M. who died at a very young age in a car accident. The family was Catholic and Dad informed us that the ceremony included a Mass and that this “may take a while” and to “please, be on our best behavior.” Accompanying the parents to a funeral for the first time gave me the impression of some final rite of passage from the tween years to the teen years.

Some years later, in my Music Theory class in high school, I learned about the Requiem Mass or the Missa pro defunctis (Mass for the deceased). It is a liturgical service of the Roman Catholic Church celebrated by a presiding priest for the repose of the soul of a particular deceased person. Or, as I understand it, persons. The Requiem has inspired many composers to pen music for this, as you can imagine, emotionally charged ceremony.

I have two Requiems on my iPod. One is by Johannes Brahms whose German Requiem I mentioned before. The text in his Requiem isn’t liturgical. He chose scripture portions that he figured would bring comfort to one who grieves.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem occupies a place of honor on my iPod. It does follow the Roman Catholic liturgy. As a protestant, the liturgy, in its Latin form, doesn’t elicit much of a personal spiritual response. But on this Good Friday, the music of this popular and respected work penned by this “down to earth” composer soothes the soul and honors the human aspect of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Credits: To Grandma A., for marching to the beat of a different drummer. We loved the beak bears!

Peace

Ralph Vaughan Williams, composer; Dona Nobis Pacem; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; Robert Shaw, conducting

The economy, if you’ll recall, went south in late October or early November of 2008. Regardless, the Annapolis Chorale continued with preparations for a mid-November performance of two magnificent, but obscure, chorale works. When the performance dates arrived, the big chorus and its collaborative orchestra suited up and offered a stirring, polished and inspired presentation of moving music with both spirited and docile text. The audience took the night off.

The house didn’t stand empty. Let’s just say that something other than the numbers in the audience motivated a marvelous performance from the ensemble. Some who analyze numbers under these circumstances could contend that, because the two masterworks on this concert don’t get programmed very often, potential audience members prefer to hear musical pieces that they already know. Maybe. A few people think that way. I have found, however, in the typical concert-going Annapolitan, an open-mindedness and a guarded, yet welcoming, whim for something different.

I heard that even patrons who had purchased tickets for the whole season, many months before, forsook those tickets and remained safe and warm in their homes, and not out in that nasty, untrustworthy, cold, damp economy. Hmmmmm. Is it possible to be of a mindset that says, “I know we already have the tickets, but let’s skip the concert. We still have to account for the gas in the car to get to the performance, somebody might invite us out for coffee afterward and, in a moment of weakness, we might accept. Let’s stay home and eat that can of beans in the cupboard.”

Hey, everybody! STOP! Don’t move a muscle! The economy’s bad. If you even touch something it might break. We’re all going to have to stop living for a while.

I’m cynical here because the industry in which I operate reacts, perhaps in a more volatile manner than in any other, to the various comfort levels of the consumer. The first things to go during hard times are those things that we need the most; namely music and art. I need you, reader. I am grateful for your support for all things musical and artistic. And I hope that you discover that, at least in some small way, perhaps, you need me, too.

On the night before his crucifixion, the Lord Jesus celebrated a Passover meal with his disciples. When the meal had ended and after Judas had left to betray Jesus, the Lord concluded and summed up his ministry by speaking plainly to the disciples, according to St. John, about his relationship with the Father, about what would happen during the next few hours, and about what he expected from them. At what must have been a powerful and poignant moment, he looked at them and said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives to I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Dona Nobis Pacem” (“Grant Us Peace”) gets its title from the final words of the Agnus Dei.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

Mr. Vaughan Williams wrote this cantata in 1936, between the two World Wars. In addition to the Latin text in the Agnus Dei, he calls on the words from three anti-war poems by Walt Whitman, a famous speech from 19^th century member of Parliament John Bright,

The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land. You may almost hear the beating of his wings.

And he also uses the English text to the Gloria, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men…”

When Jesus spoke of peace, he talked about reconciliation with God, secured through the death and resurrection of Christ. Since the fall in the Garden of Eden, the nature of mankind has served only to infringe the political and military peace of man that we so desire and expect of ourselves. Despite the futility of the effort, however, we continue to seek that peace. Ralph Vaughan Williams’ father was a reverend. He would have taught the young Ralph that humankind as a whole cannot change its nature. As long as there are lands to conquer, man will sacrifice peace in order to conquer.

With these words:

I see a sad procession,

And I heard the sound of coming full-key’d bugles,

All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding,

As with voices and with tears.

I hear the great drums pounding

And the small drums steady whirring,

And every blow of the great convulsive drums,

Strikes me through and through.

Mr. Vaughan Williams calls for a peace that cannot be sustained, just as Jesus says to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Put your sword into its sheath, for all who take the sword shall perish by the sword.”

Credits: To Ralph Vaughan Williams, for optimism and the beauty that it finds.