February
Sharon's Monthly Roundup
Happy almost-end-of-February! As a reminder, these monthly posts for free subscribers are composed of snippets from the weekly posts for paying readers.
Minor news: the premiere of the Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel concerto has been moved from March to June. On the one hand, this means I have way more time to work on the concerto; on the other hand, it’s slightly complicating my performing-recording timeline over the next couple of months. I’m trying to figure out when I can place several solo concerts (with slightly different programs for each one) and go into the recording studio at least twice and not mess up, you know, premiering a concerto.
One of my plans for the year is to record the original Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel sonata; however, I obviously also have to premiere the new concerto version, and I cannot work on both at once. This week I sat down with a calendar and tried to map out prep timelines for both, and it was like doing one of those wolf-goat-cabbage puzzles. The problem is I’m good at those puzzles, but not good at knowing how I can prep a bunch of music without stressing or burning myself out.
“Why can’t you work on both at once? Isn’t it essentially the same piece?” you might be asking.
Glad you asked, fictional skeptic I just projected all my doubts onto! The problem is that my muscle memory is tied directly to my ear, much as the faulty brakes were attached to the wheels of the mountain bike I got for my 14th birthday, and simultaneously working on two things that have the same-sounding melodies and harmonies just increases the chances that, just as on the inaugural ride of the mountain bike I got for my 14th birthday, I will fall spectacularly on my face.
One example! Here’s a bit from the second movement of the original:
And here’s the corresponding bit in the new concerto:
Practicing this concerto means I have to actively undo the muscle memory from the sonata; at some point I think (hope???) that I’ll be able to switch back and forth between the two more easily, but at the moment I would like them not to touch in my brain.
(I am, though, excited to get back in the recording studio, not least because funding my recordings is the whole point of getting income from this newsletter.)
How to make Brahms better
from the February 10 newsletter
Brahms’ music is the kind of thing I like in theory; it’s romantic, it’s lush, it’s got some killer themes, it is—like me—obsessed with Clara Schumann. In practice, though, his music doesn’t always do it for me. The buildups are very satisfying (Johannes loves a slow burn) but then there are often just long stretches of just, like, dense musical rumination with “this meeting could have been an email” energy.
Brahms’ writing just has so much going on horizontally and vertically and not all performances make it work! Years ago I saw a studiomate at the SF Conservatory perform the Brahms First Concerto and absolutely kill it, which made me even more excited to go hear a well-known Brahms interpreter (whose playing I normally adore) play it with the SF Symphony, and I was astonished that said interpreter made the concerto feel very aimless.
Thanks to my years of music study, I also have Extra Brahms Trauma. (…Brahmsma?) An entire semester of Instrumental Conducting was devoted solely to Brahms’ “Variations on a Theme by Haydn” which, imho, is not just one of the worst things Brahms wrote, but one of the dullest works of all time. God, it freaking blows. (This cursed piece gives me so much Music School PTSD.)
Then, several years later, I was at a festival where another venerated Brahms interpreter (there are a lot of those out there, huh?) gave a special all-Brahms recital where they performed the full Op. 116, 117, 118, and 119 in one go.
For those of you who were not made to memorize the contents of dozens of opus numbers in music school, that’s a total of twenty works by Brahms in all. Twenty things by any one composer is already a lot, especially when said composer is, like Mahler, not a concise dude. Halfway through the recital I was exhausted, and by the end I was ready to get in a time travel machine and fight Brahms himself. (I’m way taller, I could totally take him.)
At the end all the other pianists were like “Wow, what a gift to hear so much Brahms played so well! That was amazing!” and I thought “Oh god there’s something wrong with me” so I frantically echoed the sentiment, and then on the ride back I was seated next to a highly respected pedagogue who asked me what I thought of the concert.
“Oh, uh, I thought it was great! So amazing to hear all that Brahms!” I said hastily, trying to look like a Good Serious Piano Student and not like someone who had just spent half a concert wondering if she was undergoing some kind of Sisyphean punishment in the afterlife (without the swoleness).
“Oh,” the respected pedagogue said sadly, turning to look wistfully out the window. “I thought it was too much. I don’t enjoy listening to that much Brahms at once.”
I was then stuck the whole drive trapped in the persona of someone who does enjoy listening to that much Brahms, unable to convey to the respected pedagogue that we were actually kindred spirits, and that’s why I just think honesty is the best policy now.
ANYWAY. I went to the LA Phil last weekend and there was a Brahms piece on the program…WITH A TWIST. It was a Brahms piano quartet arranged by Arnold Schoenberg. Yes, that Schoenberg, the twelve-tone guy. The program notes quoted Schoenberg’s rationalization for orchestrating the work:
1. I like the piece
2. It is seldom played
3. It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted once to hear everything, and this I achieved.
Relatable???
I was really struck how much the piece sounded…like Brahms, but not like Brahms. And it ROCKED. It had just enough of that lushness and thematic interplay but also felt more balanced and shockingly fresh and fun, thanks in large part to the use of xylophone and glockenspiel. Xylophone! In Brahms!
The fourth movement especially slaps SO HARD:
The Onion continues to not miss
There have been many, many good insightful takes about the New York Times’ bungled response to the open letter calling for a more equitable approach to reporting on trans issues. I particularly appreciated this piece in the SF Chronicle by Soleil Ho and this historical retrospective by Jack Mirkinson at The Nation.
I am, obviously, a stalwart proponent of the power of satire, and The Onion really delivered.
“It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible” is a masterpiece of the form. There are so many viciously quotable bits, but here’s one:
“Quentin” is a 14-year-old assigned female at birth who now identifies as male against the wishes of his parents. His transition was supported by one of his unmarried teachers, who is not a virgin. He stole his parents’ car and drove to the hospital, where a doctor immediately began performing top surgery on him. Afterward, driving home drunk from the hospital, Quentin became suicidally depressed, and he wonders now, homeless and ridden with gonorrhea, if transitioning was a mistake.
We just made Quentin up, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean stories like his aren’t potentially happening everywhere, constantly. Good journalism is about finding those stories, even when they don’t exist. It’s about asking the tough questions and ignoring the answers you don’t like, then offering misleading evidence in service of preordained editorial conclusions. In our case, endangering trans people is the lodestar that shapes our coverage. Frankly, if our work isn’t putting trans people further at risk of trauma and violence, we consider it a failure.
(The use of the word “lodestar,” by the way, is such a brilliant [chef’s kiss].)
I think everyone should read this book
from the February 10 newsletter
One of my favorite categories of non-fiction is “book about a super specific thing that does such a good job explaining so many things about why the world is the way it is that it’s subtly changed my understanding of everything.” This is a very long category title and I need to figure out a snappier way to say all of that.
Reasons I read Sofi Thanhauser’s Worn: A People’s History of Clothing:
I’m mildly obsessed with textiles and clothing quality and thought it would be cool to learn more.
That’s it.
Reasons I now want to push Sofi Thanhauser’s Worn: A People’s History of Clothing on people:
The mere existence of clothing is something most people don’t ever think very much about and reading this book made me so aware about and grateful for the engineering miracle that is fabric and the ridiculous level of craftsmanship required to make even nondescript everyday clothes. Much as David Masumoto’s Epitaph for a Peach made me a more grateful and conscious consumer of produce, Worn has given me a greater awareness of clothing that comes with the added side benefit of me shopping less.
A history of clothing is also a history of the insane interconnectedness of everything, and to understand why the clothes on your back are there in the first place, you have to understand things like the history of the labor movement in America (and why things went very differently in the South than in the North), exactly how the British Empire intentionally destroyed Indian local economies and trapped farmers (colonialism!!!!), how economic power has shifted in and out of the hands of women over centuries, why you don’t want to feed a Scottish sheep too well, etc. There is a weird part of my brain that lights the heck up when I learn a bunch of “this explains a lot” -type information and this book just pushed that button so much.
In the endless discussion of the environmental devastation and rampant exploitation in the garment industry—particularly in fast fashion—a lot of people tend to say “Well, the problem is just really complex, nothing we can do about it, oh well!” The book doesn’t pretend that the problem is simple (see Point #2: everything is connected), but it demonstrates that it is something we are capable of understanding, and that there are things we can do about it, even if there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
If the increasing ubiquity of that menswear guy, as well as writers like Cora Harrington, are any indication, we’re having more conversations about craftsmanship, quality, and ethics in fashion. If the responses to their informative posts are any indication, we are a long way from all being on the same page about any of this stuff. I really wish I had the power to assign Worn as required reading to all the jabronis on Twitter who quite frankly have no idea what they are talking about.
I did actually learn a lot about textiles, so that was cool. (I also finished the book sorely tempted to get a sheep and learn to spin and weave my own wool. Luckily for my husband, we live in a small apartment in LA, so that’s an automatic non-starter.)
I have been obsessed with these songs
I checked out the songs from Italy’s Sanremo Festival and one song—which was not the winner—was the clear standout to me.
I have listened to Madame’s “Il bene nel male” so many times it’s a little worrying. The song starts out sounding like a bog-standard slow ballad (we have been over my feelings about slow songs already) and then the beat kicks in and it’s just…hypnotic. The insistent repetition embodies the sensation of obsession so perfectly. (I am trying, very hard, not to shoehorn the term “idée fixe” in here, so just know that and appreciate my efforts.)
Then thanks to a friend sending me this music video and saying “the girl in it looks like you” I discovered Maître Gims, a French rapper, this week, and this song in particular.
“Reste” immediately kicks off with that seductive synth and the first time I heard it, I was already on board, and then went “Wait, is that Sting???”
I don’t know why it shocked me so much—it’s just that when you’re diving into the oeuvre of a new-to-you French rapper, the last voice you expect to hear is Sting’s. We love an unexpected collab! Anyway, this song…it’s just so good. I have listened to it on repeat so many times, man; it just takes me to a good place.
(The song is also about all-consuming fixation, so I just might be obsessed with obsession.)
I have dumped “Il bene nel male” on “L’anglais est ennuyeux,” my ongoing master-playlist of bops and bangers in anything other than English. Sadly “Reste” did not make the cut, because Sting’s extensive verses in English disqualify it from entering. Sorry, Sting.