Vespers

In the Broad Street Review…

Now is the Time, American contemporary music, Sundays at 10 pm. On WRTI-HD2 and on the classical stream at wrti.org. This week, Mad Men:

David Carbonara. Mad Men Suite.
Interview with David Carbonara.
David Carbonara. Lipstick.
John Zorn. Train to Thiensan.
John Zorn. Snake Catcher.
Lois V Vierk. Go Guitars.
Larry Kucharz. Pastel 9909.

It’s all styles of concert music by living American composers. Here are the recording details and complete schedule, and because you  really wanted to know, here’s the theme music and how it was written. Tell me what you think (if I can’t take it, I promise to write back), and ask me where you can send CDs for broadcast consideration.

Matthew Weiner, the creator of the hugely popular TV series Mad Men—now in its fifth season—works very hard at going beneath the surface to capture the look of the 1960s, from company logo typefaces to office equipment tints to the shine in a pair of trousers. Mad Men composer David Carbonara labors just as much on the show’s music to express that era; he’s a composer of acutely original pieces.

Mad Men, Original Soundtrack from the TV Series, Vol. 1 is filled mostly with standards from artists such as Gordon Jenkins (“Caravan”), Vic Damone (“On the Street Where You Live”), and Ella Fitzgerald, who makes an appearance with “Manhattan.” “Fly Me to the Moon” is Julie London’s luscious pizzicato-tinged string version, not Frank Sinatra’s better-known big-band hit.

But for lovers of music in the cracks—not pop, not concert, but what, exactly—the reason to look for this CD may be David Carbonara himself.

Weiner chooses most of the period songs, but “Lipstick” by Carbonara is a distillation (if you will, given all the imbibing in the series) of music in the twilight: slightly lounge, slightly jazz, and as rebellious as one may appear while keeping one’s hair in place.

 It’s the sound of muted trumpets, punchy trombones, low flutes, snapping fingers, walking bass lines, one-handed laconic piano playing (necessary while stubbing out a cigarette), and that child of the time, the Hammond organ. His “Mad Men Suite” is likewise all delicately drawn atmosphere.

A big surprise is the inclusion of the traditional round “Babylon,” known by many (anachronistically for the show) from Don McLean’s 1971 album American Pie. In one episode it was worked into a Village mandolin-strummed folk happening (with Carbonara briefly on camera, playing autoharp!). Its text comes right out of Psalm 137, “By the waters of Babylon, we laid down and wept, when we remembered Zion.”

What that has to do with the advertising world, legions of die-hard Mad Men fans will know. There’s a lot going on here beneath the surface.

Silence. “Sorry, didn’t get that. Try again?”

The parking lot attendant for this crowded commencement day spoke into his walkie-talkie again. “A guy here says he has reserved… parking. Alumni… For the Day.”

“Alumni for the Day?… don’t know anything about that. Wait, hold on.” People walking by the car look at me. Then, “Hey OK, send him through, we’ll figure it out.”

He moves a traffic cone and I shunt out of the lane. They figured it out indeed, and a hundred yards on, there was a space, just for me, another attendant waving me in, moving another cone to one side. Having cones moved for you is very nice, I discover. I would’ve parked where I’ve been parking all semester and walked the five minutes, but when the office told me I had reserved parking, I thought, I’m going for the reserved parking.

Philadelphia Biblical University honored me at Saturday’s commencement as its 2012 Alumnus of the Year, and at a luncheon afterward presented me with a beautiful crystal award. I am humbled and surprised by it. Chancellor W. Sherrill Babb said some awfully nice things at the commencement ceremony, and President of the University Todd Williams introduced me with extremely kind words at the luncheon.

Thirty-two years ago I was graduated from Philadelphia College of Bible (as it was then called), its first year at its present, Langhorne campus, with a Bachelor of Science in Bible and a Bachelor of Music in Composition. Many things here have changed, many things have stayed the same. I would like Sam Hsu to have seen this, but he’s in a better place.

Jackie and I filled in for him, if it can be expressed that way, by teaching Music History 2 (Baroque, Classical) and Music History 4 (1900–present), respectively, until a more permanent fix for his position is found. I’ve enjoyed it immensely and learned so much from teaching there this semester.

I also taught Music Notation at Temple University this semester, and it comes rushing back that Temple’s School of Music presented me with their Alumni award two years ago, similarly surprising and humbling me.

I don’t know what I’ve learned in these years, or what I’ve done to merit these profound notices by these good people, but I do know that I’m in company that I like to keep. These are fine, fine people, and it’s good to be around them.

They sent me through.

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963). Five Pieces for String Orchestra, Op. 44, No. 4 (1927). Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Werner Andreas Albert. CPO 999783. 12:00

Hindemith. Trauermusik (1936). Dmitri Jakubovsky, viola, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Saulius Sondeckis. CBS/Sony 48372. 7:55

Hindemith. Symphony in E-flat (1940). BBC Symphony Orchestra, Yan Pascal Tortelier. Chandos 9060. 29:58

Once the darling of new music and his country’s rulers, Hindemith ran afoul of both groups, and lately it seemed as if nothing was going right.

This was new to him. He was one of the best-prepared composers of the 20th Century. He played violin so well, at 23 he was concertmaster of the Frankfurt Opera (he also married the conductor’s daughter). He founded a string quartet, moved to viola, and eventually learned to play every instrument he could find, modern or ancient. He started music festivals, wrote theory books, soloed and conducted internationally. Everything he wrote was immediately performed and published.

But he made some enemies along the way. He had long since rejected the 12-tone orthodoxy in new music’s rising tide, and its influential disciples were quite happy to ignore him.

The new German Reich liked his educational leanings (exemplified by Five Pieces for String Orchestra, written for intermediate players), but finally wearied of his dissonances and thinly veiled swipes at authority. His wife was partly Jewish, and he worked with too many Jews to suit their purposes. Goebbels had him placed on the Entartete (“degenerate” music) list.

In 1936 London he was trying to make the transition to a more international profile, as opportunities in Germany dried up. He was to perform his viola concerto Der Schwanendreher with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The folk-tune-filled Schwanendreher (the person who turns the roasting swan on the spit: always humorous, Hindemith identified with the swan) would be a springboard for his usefulness as both composer and soloist.

But two days before the concert, England’s King George V died, and all performances were cancelled. It was a national tragedy, but a personal blow to Hindemith, trying to patch together a career. A lesser artist might have moped, cursing his fates, but Hindemith was practical to the core. From 11 am to 5 pm he sat down in an office at the BBC and composed Trauermusik (“music of mourning”) for solo viola and strings. Sir Adrian Boult gathered the BBC string players into a studio the next day, and they performed it in a live broadcast with Hindemith as soloist, galvanizing a grieving country.

Trauermusik quotes from Schwanendreher, from Mathis der Maler (his operatic jab at national-socialist repression), and from a Lutheran chorale, usually translated into English as “When in the hour of utmost need.” This last melody made the British perk up, not because they knew it, but because it sounds very much like the beloved “Doxology,” or “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.” Hindemith hadn’t a clue, but proved Seneca’s dictum, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

Four years later, an almost unknown immigrant in the U.S., he would write his outstanding Symphony in E-flat, and his career re-blossomed, commissions and students flocking to him. Hindemith was nothing if not prepared.

On the first Saturday of the month Jack Moore and I host Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection on WRTI 90.1 FM in Philadelphia and on the all-classical webstream at wrti.org. We also broadcast encore presentations of the entire Discoveries series (now ten years and counting!) every Wednesday at 7:00 pm on WRTI HD-2. For a look at all the shows, click here.

Dan is such a sensitive conductor and knows Vespers inside-out, having sung every performance of it with The Crossing from his customary spot over in second bass country. I’m grateful not only for his consideration of this hymn setting, but also for his further commitment to make the entire Vespers the subject of his doctoral dissertation.