OCTOBER 2019

October 1, 2019 leonard slatkin

I know, I know. You want to hear about my fake-news death and the Jimmy Kimmel show. That will come a bit later in this entry. To start, I need to get back to music.

After a five-week absence from the podium, very intentional, I returned for a set of single, one-off concerts during September. It seemed a bit strange, but I wound up opening the season for the Houston Symphony. Usually in the States, these programs are done by the music director, but as Maestro Orozco-Estrada has two positions, he had to give up one opening night, allowing me to return to the orchestra for the first time in several years.

This was a gala event, not the opening of the subscription season. We decided on a Russian program featuring the great Yefim Bronfman. When you have him playing Rachmaninov 3, it really doesn’t matter what else is on the program, but it is important to make the audience excited for the remainder of the season. Houston has a terrific orchestra, and the city has every right to be proud of its ensemble.

With three rehearsals, and thankfully with the hotel literally across the street from the hall, cramming everything into a couple days was fairly easy. But the full orchestra had not played together for over a month, and I had several things to accomplish. First was to get them reacquainted with each other and with me, and next was to focus on polishing the pieces. We started rehearsals off with Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien, a work I have not done in quite a while. It turns out the orchestra had not seen it recently either.

After that it was on to a piece that is part of my heritage but now is almost completely forgotten. Kamarinskya by Glinka is a combination of two tunes associated with traditional Russian weddings. It is a bit tricky but certainly fun to do. The orchestra was well-engaged and seemed to enjoy this foray into uncharted musical waters. I will perform it again later this month in New York.

Then came yet another piece I had not performed in a long time—Sir Malcolm Sargent’s transcription of the Nocturne from Borodin’s String Quartet. As is often the case, I listened to my parents’ recording of the original, and soon came to the conclusion that their approach might not be so suitable for large string ensemble. The rubatos and portamentos work fine with four instrumentalists but might seem exaggerated with the full group. I put a few in and adjusted dynamics, trying to keep the work intimate.

Fima was there for the afternoon rehearsal. Having just performed the work with him this past summer, I did not think it necessary to meet prior to the orchestra session. Clearly, however, he had thought about a few passages in a different way. Still, it is so much fun just to play and listen to each other. It is like large-scale chamber music.

All went well at the dress rehearsal, and everyone seemed to truly enjoy the performance. A dinner followed, and all the Houstonians in the big room were delightful to get to know. I look forward to returning in the near future.

Back in May, I had the pleasure of conducting the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, based in Dublin. We had such a good time that two weeks were put into the schedule for this season. For this first one, there were a couple pieces on the program that were new to the orchestra as well as one standard work. Brahms’s Fourth is fast becoming my go-to symphony by that composer. All of them are equally difficult, in very different ways. The last one probably requires the strongest degree of architectural clarity. As with the other three, I never tire of performing it.

The RTÉ really dug into it, delivering a strong but nuanced presentation with lovely solo playing, especially by the principal clarinet and principal flute. Throughout the rehearsal period and during the performance, it was clear that the orchestra and I had a strong connection. This was chamber music playing with full forces. The web stream of the concert is available here. The visit in January will be a Beethoven program, and I am looking forward to having a good time with the Seventh Symphony.

We began this concert with Kinah, the work I wrote in memory of my parents. Since the Irish do speak English, I could deliver remarks, informing them of the history behind the piece. Now that I, as well as other conductors, have performed the piece several times, it has become easier to rehearse. All the tricky bits get sorted out before we play through the entire work. It is most gratifying to have so many members of the orchestra say how moved they are by both the story and the piece. Kinah comes up again a couple times during the course of this season.

It is wonderful to see the Barber Piano Concerto now coming into its own. For the years when John Browning was around to play it, most pianists avoided the work, probably fearing comparisons to the work’s first performer. And having performed it so many times with John, my ideas for the piece are closely aligned with his. In Dublin the pianist was Xiayin Wang, Chinese born but now living in the States. She has recorded the Barber and clearly knows it well. Her playing was virtuosic and refined as needed. The audience responded well to this relative rarity for them.

Cindy and I now had a bit more than a week before the next gig. After not too much discussion, we decided to travel around Ireland, taking in as much of the Emerald Isle as possible. My wife has become quite the photographer, so there was a lot for her to do. I tend to look more for the historical and cultural side of things. But this trip really was about Cindy’s family. With a great deal of genealogical work, she has been able to trace the clan back a few centuries. Among the things she has discovered is that a couple relatives were accused of being witches in Salem. This might explain why Cindy can get me to do things I normally would not.

What a beautiful country it is. Yes, the weather can be difficult, but we were fortunate that there were several days of sunshine to illuminate the incredible views of coasts and cliffs. I am not a beer drinker, but Cindy tried several, settling on Galway Hooker—yes, that is what it is called—as her favorite. I broke down one night and had a glass of whiskey. More than likely I will stick with wine. Rather than go into a lengthy travelogue, I will simply list some of the things we saw. Cindy’s photos below really do tell the story better than words.

Sheep: Millions of them, none jumping over fences.
Cows: Sort of like big sheep.
Leprechauns: Nope, none of the tykes to be found.
Shamrocks: Didn’t see any of these either. Pixies must have covered them up.
Pubs: Went to several but never saw a bar fight.
Fish and Chips: Ubiquitous. I learned that it can either be cod or haddock.
Potatoes: The famine has clearly ended.
Language: Gaelic might be even harder to learn than Hungarian.
Belfast: Quite the contrast to Dublin. Hard to believe that they are still fighting.
Brexit: Everyone is concerned about how this is going to turn out. It will be tough on the economy, in any event.

***

A few days after arriving in Southwest Ireland, getting ready to visit the Ring of Kerry, I awoke at four o’clock in the morning. Deciding to check my computer to look over the baseball standings, I was pleased to see that the Cardinals had a pretty good hold on first place in the Central division. I was surprised at the number of notifications that had come in.

On my desktop were a flurry of email messages, Facebook notifications, and Twitter mentions. A quick perusal revealed that my photo had appeared on screen during André Previn’s In Memoriam tribute at the Emmy Awards. I was shocked and somewhat appalled, feeling horrible for André and his family and wondering what had really happened. I went back to bed and waited for the morning, when perhaps things would be clearer.

Nope. Clearly someone had not done his or her homework. People actually wrote me, wondering if I was still alive, leading me to wonder why, if they believed that, they would write me in the first place. Although very nice to be on the same program with Game of Thrones, Fleabag and Chernobyl, this was not the way I wanted to debut at the awards ceremony. But now, this was a story that many wanted to know about.

With several requests from various media outlets, I decided to do just one of each. So, there was a print story from the Detroit Free Press, a radio interview with Elliott Forrest on WQXR in New York, and the surprise ask from Jimmy Kimmel, the last of which was very tricky to accomplish. First of all, there was the time difference between Ireland and Hollywood, eight hours. The show records at 5 p.m. PDT, which is 1 a.m. in Kerry.

Prior to that, there were several things that needed to occur. First was a call with the producer to establish what we would talk about and for him to get an idea of my sense of humor. Then came the whole connection thing. It was done in a Skype-like fashion but using their own software and server. Cindy had to work her computer magic to make this happen. It took a bit of doing, as the internet in our hotel room was a little slow, but eventually, we got things up and running. I was told that it would be a short segment following the monologue.

At no point, other than during the show itself, did I speak with Jimmy. There was a bit of a delay in the start of the program, and they did allow for retakes if needed. At 1:15 in the morning for me, the lead-in to the interview was given. I could see Kimmel the whole time, exactly as the home viewers could. The questions had been screened in advance, and they knew more or less what I would say. As neither Jimmy nor I stuck entirely to a script, it was spontaneous and a lot of fun. Mainly, I wanted to make sure that André got his due. Here you can see the whole thing, including a little story about reading my own obituary with Roger Ebert. This portion did not make the broadcast.

By the end of the day, more than 60,000 people had viewed the YouTube clip, giving André his proper due. I was also grateful for the opportunity to reach a wider audience and hope to visit Jimmy at some point when I visit my son on the West Coast.

***

Now it is back to work, with a week in Germany followed by some very interesting programs in the States. Cindy has made some great connections to continue her search for family roots. I have some new projects that are shaping up well. It is just a matter of finding the time for them. And Daniel is hard at work on his first big project, a documentary about the Detroit bankruptcy.

Cindy’s photos from Ireland can be found below.

See you next month,

Leonard