80 is not the new 60; it is 80—period.
Not that it seems to have mattered very much, as I feel great. The new number on the left has been around for a few weeks now, and gradually, I have eased my way back into season-opening form.
On September 1, we had a few friends over to the house for wine and cheese, followed by more wine. Cindy had surprised me the previous evening with some wonderful gifts, including the new computer on which I am writing this essay. Looks much better, doesn’t it?
There were some excellent celebrations, including a first pitch at a Cardinals game. The Chamber Music Society of St. Louis held a gala at the Sheldon Auditorium, where my father played a recital when he was just 12 years old. With Olga Kern, Sylvia McNair, and Jimmy Lin around to play and schmooze, as well as many friends, I realized that returning to St. Louis six years ago was a very good idea.
Thank you to the well-wishers who sent greetings in the form of letters, cards, and social-media posts. I even reconnected with a few friends I had not talked to in a while, which brought me great pleasure. If you are reading this but did not hear from me, please forgive my lack of response. There were just too many messages to answer each one personally.
My first engagement of the season was in Providence. I have been conducting the Rhode Island Philharmonic for several years, and this time, I led their opening set of concerts. Olga joined in with one of her signature pieces, Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. This is the work we have performed together most often, and now we are at the point of simply having fun with it, playing off each other and giving the piece a high degree of spontaneity.
Cindy’s Tempus Fugit opened the proceedings, and the orchestra handled its intricacies without a problem. Kudos to the percussion section for moving from one instrument to the other with ease. We then played Ron Nelson’s Sarabande: For Katherine in April, a lovely contrast to the McTee. Ron taught for many years at Brown University in Providence, so this was a fitting tribute to a marvelous composer who passed away last year.
The second half contained two works I have paired together often. The orchestra captured the sonic delights of Hovhaness’s ethereal Mysterious Mountain, with a hymnlike first movement recalling the Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia, followed by a furious fugue and restful finale. Gershwin’s An American in Paris wrapped up the concert. I can no longer succinctly describe the manner of performance the orchestra needs to emulate to get the style down pat. In the old days, it was simple: watch any Fred Astaire film. Today, with so many fresh faces in the ensembles, that name is met with some blank stares. Meanwhile, the old-timers all nod in agreement. Nonetheless, the Rhode Islanders did the piece proud, and we started off their season with a bang.
Next, I traveled to Las Vegas for a couple days of getting to know you. Meetings with members of the orchestra and board were filled with informative exchanges. The city is having a huge growth spurt, and the orchestra needs to make contact with all the new businesses moving into town. I do not see them again until November, but we have laid the groundwork for what I hope will be a successful season.
My job there entails helping to look for a new musical director and outlining a different path for the orchestra to reach out to the community and the Vegas entertainment sector. We must use every tool at our disposal. For example, when we talked about expanding concerts outside of the Smith Center, I observed that Las Vegas itself is one gigantic performance venue, and we ought to take better advantage of that.
I had the opportunity to throw out another first pitch, this time for the Las Vegas Aviators.
Guess what is on the program I will conduct on my next visit? You got it: the Hovhaness/Gershwin combination.
To help celebrate my 80th, I decided to make this season a family affair. Many of my programs contain works by my father, Daniel, Cindy, or me. In one case this October, all three living members of the Slatkin family will be represented on the same program.
I am amazed at how well Daniel has mastered the art of orchestration. He knows how to write full string sounds and utilize different mute techniques for the brass. His new piece, Voyager 130, is about 13 minutes long and has a very solid structure so that the audience does not get lost on the journey.
Daniel fell in love with Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 130 and its inclusion on the Golden Record that has been traveling through space aboard the Voyager probes for nearly 50 years. Using his gift for visually evocative writing, he gives the listener an opportunity to “see” the music, including the rockets’ red glare at takeoff and the twinkling of the spacecrafts’ computer systems. He also incorporates various fragments of recorded speech contained on the Golden Record—greetings in a dozen different languages to represent our human identity.
The first performance took place in Dublin with the NSO, an orchestra I have been working with regularly for the past several years. I had every confidence in the work, and that was born out at the first rehearsal when the orchestra applauded enthusiastically after the initial play-through. The audience gave it their stamp of approval as well, and now I can look forward to the next performances.
Dublin-based pianist Hugh Tinney was our soloist in Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto, bringing a thoughtful and classic approach to this masterpiece. We concluded with Brahms’s Third Symphony, a work that I really should do more often. What wonders there are on every page! The musicians loved playing it, which showed in their flexible and rapt response.
On other fronts, my fifth book was released in the middle of the month. This one is a sequel to the previous volume of score studies. I take a hard look at eight pieces from the 19th century and detail what conductors, and indeed any musicians, need to know when approaching those works. It looks like the series will continue.
The concert season is now in full swing, and I get to spend the first two weeks of October with my old band in Lyon. The repertoire is mostly American and, of course, the birthday celebrations will continue.
See you next month,
Leonard