Appalachian Spring would have been unbearable if the election had turned out differently, but, happily, it seemed another affirmation of our better angels. And the dryness and spareness of it really struck me; it's not so utterly removed from early John Cage or Morton Feldman. I’m glad they didn’t ask me to play the Britten violin concerto. Midori is probably one of two people on earth who can handle it. Little bursts of lyricism and then jumping abruptly to the next thing. Fiendish but not showy, which is why it never gets played.
(I doubt the choice of two gay composers for the first half of the program was deliberate, but the question came up, especially since getting to Disney that night involved driving around the tail-end of Silver Lake's Stop Prop. 8 demonstration. Just wondering.)
We knew Revueltas La noche de los mayas was going to be a wow when we saw 14 percussionists assembled in the back of the stage (bongos, caracol, drum with snares, drum without snares, guiro, huehuetl, Indian drum, sonajas, tam-tam, tom-toms, tumbadora, tumkul, and xylophone), and it was. But what really sent me was the big flat fart the tuba kept making during the Jarana dance.
(Some demonstrators were still out after the concert. Best sign: "I didn't vote on your marriage.")
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