Whitsunday

 June 5, 2022

The Lord’s red Whitsun. 

Downtown last night to hear the Asheville Symphony’s rendition of Beethoven’s 9th, after all a credible and moving interpretation. There was great limpidity, and I heard passages I’d not noticed before. The conductor is Romantic, attractive, committed, personable, and, if last night was an indication, headed to or in the midst of great things. He’s also a show-off, but who isn’t? The men of the chorus were excellent, and the soprano soloist landed on the top note of the soloists’ quartet like a warbler landing on the tip of a pine tree– effortless, radiant. People forget that the three sections leading up to the choral section are themselves masterpieces, the best composer in the world working at the pinnacle of his powers. At that point the word “Titan” came into my mind. When the voices come in, Beethoven is no longer just the best composer in the world, but a Titan. Not Apollo but Hyperion, something rougher and more elemental than the Olympians. No one painted better than Velasquez, but Velasquez is not a Titan. Caravaggio is. Michelangelo but not Raphael. It has nothing to do with quality, but with the final impulse of energy– available only to the few-- that hurls a maker beyond the confines of his world. It is transfiguring, but it can be impolite. Stravinsky’s influence is found everywhere, but Mahler was a Titan. The music of the choral section is, my musician friends are fond of pointing out, not actually very “good.” It’s mischievous, unmannerly, unexpected, too close to acknowledging a Bavarian oom-pah band. I think Beethoven didn’t care if it was any good or not, because it was sublime & immortal. He was a grinning kid walking on stage in the middle of a symphony, doing a trick with a soccer ball, all eyes suddenly on him. 

Additionally, this was my first night out downtown, with the issues of crowds and parking and all, since the Pandemic. I did well. I had fun. I remembered what it is like to talk to strangers on the street. Walking to my car in the dark, I was accosted by a young man who admired my sports coat. He introduced me to his girlfriend as “My Man.”  I stopped in Zambra’s for a cocktail–my custom when the event is on that side of town– and ran into P, who ended up being my date for the night, I having been given two tickets and taking both with me in case such a thing happened. Janis had given me the best seats in the house, so he was glad to abandon his seat for mine. We talked about Schiller and Goethe till the music began. 

Asked K this morning how he had liked the concert, and his dislike of the whole evening amounted almost to wrath. I had noticed the problems he mentioned– you wanted to turn up the volume dial whenever the singers came on, intonation problems in the orchestra, a little bit of showboating on the part of the conductor-- but they had not bothered me. I supposed them to be part of an imperfect world (and a very imperfect auditorium). He let them ruin it for him. I was going to say, he is a professional and of course those things would bother him more, but in the theater I am a professional, and though I cannot forgive the selection of a bad play (Beethoven skates through in that department) I can and do forgive almost any slip or ding or outright folly that goes into an honest production. I have known perfection, though, and though I don’t anticipate it, I melt into a pool when it comes: Playboy of the Western World at the Abbey leaps into mind. It was a comedy, and I sat weeping when it ended, for sheer delight and gratitude. Music? De la Rue at Emmanuel College long ago.