From nickels to crowns
Sharon's Weekly Head Dump
I used to wonder how people got so into having preferences for conductors—even though I played in multiple youth orchestras and was very familiar with the vision and amount of labor conductors put into interpreting music, I very much felt like I couldn’t really tell one conductor’s style apart from another. Whenever I went to the symphony, what I heard, I thought, was the *piece*, and I primarily pick concerts to attend based on the program and not who’s on the podium.
Last season at the LA Phil I found myself at a concert conducted by Xian Zhang, and the last piece on the program was my least favorite Beethoven symphony: the 7th. (This, I know, is sacrilege to many people.) I resigned myself to making it through, dreading the clichéd second movement. To my utter shock, Zhang’s performance of the symphony was one of my favorite things I heard all season and it just blew my mind: it all felt so incredibly fresh and vibrant and full of life. I honestly couldn’t believe what she’d done.
Based on the magic she worked with the Beethoven, I bought tickets to hear Zhang conduct the Phil a few weeks ago, and was excited to see what she’d do with another cliché work, Smetana’s Moldau. She did not disappoint; the Smetana sounded so alive and vivid in her hands (and I enjoyed the following two movements, which I never hear).
I’m going to say a thing I have not figured out how to say without sounding stupid: Xian Zhang is really, really good at rhythm. I am fully aware that is an incredibly basic thing to say—what professional conductor isn’t good at rhythm?—but the magical thing she seems to do is to turn rhythm from a function into a vehicle for expression, and to imbue every tempo change with excitement. I have got to figure out how to do that myself.
🎵
In less thrilling news, there won’t be a practice video in the coming week, and I suspect I won’t be posting any practice videos until the new year. I’ve been having the hardest time doing any dedicated practicing the past few weeks, and despite my panic about what that means for upcoming projects, I am trying to trust that my body (or mind, or whatever) needs rest and that spending some time away from the piano will be more helpful than trying to muscle through things.
On a similar note, I will attempt to get a newsletter out next week, and after that I likely won’t post one until the second week or so of January—the holidays (and family) are nigh, and I have simply accepted that I will not have the bandwidth to write anything.
Book of the Week
After her passing, I saw a lot of people sharing excerpts from and praising Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed. I have a personal policy that if I get something out of a book excerpt on social media, I have to read the actual book—this is how I keep myself from becoming one of those insufferable people who are always talking confidently at length about things they didn’t actually read.
Nickel and Dimed is ridiculously good (and, if you are at all intimidated by the subject matter/premise like I was—an extremely easy read) and feels shockingly relevant still. It’s one of those books that makes me wring my hands and go “Why isn’t this required reading for everyone???”—hilariously, when I expressed this sentiment on Instagram, a high school friend helpfully pointed out that it had been on the optional summer reading list one year, and I had chosen not to read it. (Chris Traeger voice: Oh my god, I’m part of the problem.)
In times when it seems like everyone has strong opinions about poor people and income inequality (in other words, all the time), it’s frustratingly easy to get swept along in talking points and wishful thinking—I found Nickel and Dimed to be a really helpful (and self-aware) dose of reality, punctuated with Ehrenreich’s sharp humor and honest indignation.
Articles I Enjoyed
Note: as of Thursday while I’m writing this, New York Times staffers are currently on strike and readers have been asked to not give any clicks to the Times during the walkout. If the walkout is still going (unlikely if I understand correctly, but who knows) by the time this posts, I encourage you to wait to click on the NYT articles until later. Also, just fyi, I was able to compile this roundup without clicking through to the NYT by using Pocket.
Saskia Solomon: Where Did the Royals Find Prince George’s Nanny? (New York Times)
Norland’s quaint get-up hides the myriad skills acquired in this high octane, four-year course: In addition to the core curriculum of diaper-changing, sewing, food prep and sleep schedules, Norlanders receive training in martial arts and evasive driving techniques. They also learn to fend off potential kidnappers and shield strollers from paparazzi, while cybersecurity methods are imparted by former military intelligence officers.
Holy crap this is SUPER interesting. (Can I have a Norland nanny take care of me?? I am, after all, a former baby.)
Caity Weaver: Could I Survive the ‘Quietest Place on Earth’? (New York Times)
It is an oft-reported experience, in anechoic chambers, for visitors to become aware of the sound of blood pumping in their heads, or sloshing through veins. Hearing the movement of blood through the body is supposedly something like an absolute taboo, akin to witnessing the fabrication of Chicken McNuggets — an ordeal after which placid existence is irreparably shattered.
This account of a stint in an anechoic chamber is both super fascinating and incredibly hilarious. (I do wonder how I would do in a chamber like that, but then again I have on multiple occasions been incredibly annoyed just sitting in front of a sound-absorbent wall at the SF Conservatory, so I might not take to an entire ultra-quiet room very well.)
Red-Faced Female Cook With Historically Significant Bosoms
always saying “But Milady, there is no time” while clutching a turnip and being interrupted
Cockney accent even if the movie predates Cockney accents or is set hundreds of miles away from London
Extremely accurate list. (The “there is no time” I hear in my head is straight out of Ever After, which is not an 18th-century piece, but has the vibe of one, if that makes any sense at all.)
What I Watched
Last week I finished Season 5 of The Crown and had some very mixed feelings about it. My thoughts, in no particular order:
Overall the show is, as always, enjoyable and lavish and so chock-full of detail that I ended up on many Wikipedia deep dives. Just getting that out of the way before my other points!
The writing this season is SO HEAVY HANDED. Dear lord it was like being smacked upside the head with the same well-worn metaphor again and again. So many episodes had pointed subplots revolving around the same device which was basically “this object is OLD and people want to REPLACE it but it also has SERVED VERY ADMIRABLY and still has LOTS OF LIFE left in it, perhaps this also applies to…a PERSON???”
No actor in any of the previous seasons has fully looked like the figure they’re portraying, and there is always a slight adjustment period when they recast season to season, but I will argue that in Seasons 1-4 the major actors pretty effectively “disappeared” into their characters. This season felt the most jarring in its recasting, in that I thought each actor did an absolutely marvelous job (many, many voices and speech patterns were absolutely nailed) but it was nearly impossible to completely suspend disbelief. I cannot unsee Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge and the 6’3” Elizabeth Debicki absolutely towering over the rest of the cast lends every Princess Diana scene a touch of unintentional funniness. That brings me to…
PRINCE CHARLES. WTF. Most of this season felt straight up like it was pro-Charles propaganda. A friend and I traded theories that Buckingham Palace was secretly involved with this season’s writing, because how else do you explain…all of this? I also cannot believe that I am complaining about being made to look at an attractive person, but I agree that Dominic West, a man who is objectively pleasing to look at, was way too charismatic and attractive to be convincing in the role.
I get that the show is called The Crown and not Elizabeth II, but this season was very light on the Lizzie content! I don’t think Imelda Staunton was given enough material to really shine with and she seemed more like an auxiliary figure more than anything else.
That being said, I think the best episode was one in which the queen was barely there: Episode 3, which focuses on Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi Al-Fayed, and Sydney Johnson, was just really good (and complex) storytelling. 👑