Jazz at the Intergalactic Nightclub: Window to the end of the world?

Mankind has long been obsessed with how our world will end. As long as there have been stories detailing the creation of the world, there have been stories about its eventual demise. The latter half of the twentieth century was rife with fears of the “end of times,” and artists of all sorts found different ways to interpret or handle these dire “doom and gloom” forecasts.

Poet Thomas McGrath (1916 – 1990) experienced many moments in his lifetime where it appeared that the end of the world was near. After his family lost everything in the Great Depression, when it appeared that modern society was on the verge of collapse, McGrath enrolled in the army during World War II and was stationed on the Aleutian Islands. Although he did not see direct combat, the news reports, stories from his fellow soldiers, and pictures emerging from the travesties in Europe and the result of the atomic bomb must have had a dramatic effect on McGrath’s view of the world around him. Even after the war ended, Americans could not relax and enjoy their newfound prosperity as the Cold War began, bringing with it doomsday proclamations and constant anxiety nuclear war. This continued well into the 1980s, where a simple push of “The Button” could end everything in one moment. After seeing the power of atomic weapons in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and numerous atomic tests, Americans were terrified that the technology they had created might be their undoing.

When McGrath wrote his poem “Jazz at the Intergalactic Nightclub” in 1983, he portrayed the end of times in a science fiction-style, cabaret parody, an almost comical take on America’s preoccupation with their untimely end. He probably never suspected how frenzied the world would become as the celebrations for the turn of the millennium came around, complete with doomsday reports, “end of the world” predictions, and the Y2K panic. His poem speaks of a world that is about to step into a new era, a new eternity, one where every clock in the world will suddenly strike midnight at the same time. McGrath saw a different kind of future, one where humanity, under the control of “the Universal Congress of Transmogrification,” would be ushered into the end of time as we know it, the “enduring midnight.”

Almost twenty years after the poem was first published, the Metropolitan Museum in New York announced a concert of new works celebrating the arrival of the new millennium, all performed by tenor Robert White. Libby Larsen (b. 1950) was asked to contribute a new work, and it is easy to see why this particular text spoke to her. Larsen imagined the piece as the announcement of the second act of a cabaret show, when in actuality it is the announcement of the impending “the ultimate midnight.” The ending of the poem is reminiscent of the way the world reacted to the final countdown to the new millennium on December 31, 1999: the entire world waiting on the edge of their seats wondering if the computers would fail, or the stock market crash, or whether we would all be whisked away in “the Rapture.” As midnight hit, and the world continued as it always had, people had the same reaction as the speaker at the end of the poem: “There. It has happened. You may all go home.”

A PUCCINI IN THE PEWS: Carson Cooman’s “American liturgical” idiom

Composer Carson P. Cooman (Photo: Colby Cooman)

Gold into Diamonds is the third contemporary song cycle that I’ve had the pleasure of learning within the past few years, and the one whose origins I’ve inquired after most.  Written in 2007 for voice and piano, Carson P. Cooman’s Gold into Diamonds was commissioned by soprano Amanda Forsythe for the birthday of her mother, Rebecca Forsythe, whose poetry was used for the song text.

The music is intuitive and consonant, touched with strategic moments of striking, effective dissonance, hinting at some of Cooman’s twentieth century atonal inclinations: a style I informally refer to as “neo-romantic liturgical,” specifically calling to mind the hymns that I was raised singing in the Catholic and Lutheran church.  Cooman’s use of dissonance, however, is not arbitrary, nor is it gratuitous.  It’s subtle; it often links up with passages of unusual text that Cooman felt the need to highlight, and it is quite in line with his established tone palette.  There is nothing jarring about it, only delectably unexpected changes in musical color that lend just the right amount of a dark, contemplative verismo feel to songs that are often cheerful, comfortably tonal and characteristically “American.”

The elements within the cycle that make it so distinctly “American” are directly related to the reasons why I dubbed the compositional style “neo-romantic liturgical,” as sacred “church” music has been a distinct musical movement in American music history.  American church (or “liturgical”) music has its roots from as far back as the arrival of the Pilgrims to North America and beyond.  Settlers traveling to the “New World” brought books of psalms of French, English and Dutch origin, with them from Europe to aid in establishing their new churches. As America developed its unique culture and established itself as a legitimate, independent entity, it developed a unique music history as well.  The open sonorities of these hymns and psalms came to be clearly identified as a facet of the wide variety of compositional styles that are now seen as “American.”

Carson Cooman uses a number of these “liturgical music” elements within “Gold into Diamonds.”  For instance, the songs are all written in the key of C, an easy key for anyone to read and sing, with accidentals used sparingly and effectively.  The rhythms and tempi in the melody line remain consistent and comfortable, allowing for ease of vocal production as well as clear English diction.  There appears to be an emphasis on the melody line first and foremost in these compositions, with the piano cueing and supporting, though with moments of sparkling flourish.  All of these are elements of American liturgical music, which was written to be accessible and pleasing to a wide audience, so that all might participate in the musical experience.  Cooman, however, added moments of dissonance, chord clusters, and even silence for a reason.  There is drama to the poetry, and drama to his style, all of which gives a thrilling neo-romantic feel to his somewhat more traditional, conservative American style in this cycle.  The more dramatic moments of the pieces also lend to the songs a kind of painful vulnerability and intimacy that really sells them as works of art.

Old Time Square Dancing in Renfro Valley, Kentucky (as in Cooman's song "Ballad")

There must be credit attributed, in regard to the emotional, vulnerable nature of the cycle, to the fact that it was commissioned as a gift from daughter to mother, using the mother’s own personal poetry for text.  While it may be inferred that the text is Biblical in nature and reference, what is certain is that the stories within depict women examining their circumstances, pondering their place in life, and coming to their own unique, individual conclusions, for good or bad.

Though I do not know Rebecca Forsythe, and will not speak for her, it seems that she perhaps felt the need to bring attention to the inner machinations of women in different stages of life and enduring different degrees of either difficulty or happiness.  She, as a woman of words and of verse, wanted to tell stories that she felt needed to be heard.  Maybe to communicate to her daughter, and to other young women, that when we grow up, we aren’t invulnerable, omniscient and omnipotent, and that such a realization is normal, and not to be feared.  That our strength comes from the conscious decision to be strong, not an absence of fear and doubt.  While we may have thought at one time, that our mothers were veritable fortresses of maternal stolidity, they are also human, and deserve to be acknowledged as such.

SOME OF OUR OWN: VOX 3 Members Discuss Their Compositional Process

Composers and VOX 3 Collective members Myron Silberstein and Elizabeth Rudolph took a few minutes during a recent rehearsal to discuss the compositional elements that went into their new pieces, which will be featured in VOX 3’s American Nouveau concert.

INSPIRATIONS AND INFLUENCES

Elizabeth Rudolph, composer and soprano

MS: How did you start composing?

ER: I started high school at Lake Forest Academy. My mother had graduated from that school and it was a family tradition. I had been taking piano lessons since I was four.  The music teacher there listened to me play and said “I can’t really teach you anything more about piano, but have you ever thought about composing?” It wasn’t something I had ever thought about doing before then.

MS: What were those early writing experiments like?

ER: The first thing I wrote was a setting of a Quebec folk song for wind trio. When I had finished it, my teacher said, “Now you have to write a couple more movements for this.” That was my first experience trying to write original melodies. I wasn’t very good at it at first, but I was fourteen.

MS: What has helped you develop as a composer?

ER: Theory. The more I learn about theory the more I want to try all these tricks I find out about. I guess I feel more comfortable writing for the voice because I feel like I have a guideline. It boils down to the question “Where does it come from?” When I’m working with words I have a rhythmic pattern I can draw from; sometimes the melody is even defined by the words to a certain extent.

MS: What motivates you to write?

ER: Having a performer to write for. I don’t feel it’s music when it’s just on the page. The composer writes down this framework but then it’s up to the performers to give it life. Without the performers there is no music.

MS: Is your style consistent from piece to piece?

ER: I tend to be highly influenced by folk music and church music even though I’m an atheist. Especially early American church music is interesting, as it becomes almost a reflection of Renaissance music with its parallel fifths and octaves. That music also has a nostalgic feel for me, and I am very interested in nostalgia. Beyond that, when I’m not influenced by folk music, my work is very neo-Romantic. I’ve dabbled in Minimalism. I’m definitely not a serialist. But what about you?

MS: Well, other than some very fumbling attempts, I didn’t start composing until I was in my early twenties. I had been a solo pianist and always focusing on mid-twentieth century works. Ernest Bloch, Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin. I thought their pieces came about as close to saying what I wanted music to say as anything I had played. In the end, though, they did not actually say what I wanted to say; they just came close. So I got frustrated. It was never a matter of thinking, “Wow, Bloch did a great job, but measure 124, what a mess.” The pieces were perfect; they just weren’t what I would have written.

ER: Bloch wasn’t you.

MS: Right. Somewhere in there I put that equation together and decided it was time to start writing. I think exposure to those kinds of pieces got the harmonies in my ears. The first things I wrote were pretty tonal but with some bitonality and superimposed triads. Those are sounds I’m still pretty into. But I never studied composition other than that until I was in college. It was like a gravitational pull. I was looking through the course catalog and there was Composition I. I had never thought about finding a teacher before. I had just struggled to write. I’d practice the piano and sometimes I’d have a melodic idea of my own and take half an hour to try to make something of it. And when I’d hit a wall I’d say, “Stop wasting practice time! You’re a pianist, not a composer!” But when I saw that course listed, I had to go.

ER: I heard in your description of how you started composing that impulse, the drive to make it your own. I’m from a family of engineers. I like to think about how my spinning wheel was put together and how I could make one myself. I was hearing that echo.

MS: There is, and it’s a matter of inspiration. If I’m not inspired by something, I can let it be. The clock up on the wall here was my grandmother’s and it’s a nice clock, keeps great time …

ER: But you don’t feel the need to be a watchmaker?

MS: Exactly. But there’s a novelist I really like and I thought a lot of what he was trying to express felt familiar and exciting to me. So what is the missing link between having those feelings and getting them on paper? So I tracked down his email address and asked him that. And he said that there was no missing link. If you’re having story-thoughts, just write a story. And that was the day I became a writer.

ER: When you think about [Charles] Ives being an insurance salesman with almost no training and the pieces he wrote…well, there’s nothing stopping you if you want to write.

SONG SPECIFICS

MS: Tell me about the pieces we’re performing.

ER: The name of the poem was “Orange Elevators” and I went with the color idea and decided to write a blues-inspired piece.

MS: Orange’s color-wheel enemy!

ER: Yeah, that. Also, it’s sad, static poem, and the blues are a sad, static form.

MS: You even have the 5-6-7-6-5 melody in the piano —though with the lowered sixth. But you’re in five-four time. And lots of music in five-four feels like it’s an intentional distortion — Chopin’s first piano sonata has a movement in five-four and it just screams that he was a kid trying to be adventurous. But what you do doesn’t sound contrived, and it doesn’t even sound lopsided. You don’t hear it as a compound meter.

ER: I didn’t want to use four-four or three-four because they feel much more square — or triangular! I wanted the piece to be static but I wanted to avoid the predictable quality of those meters. Of course after you’ve heard it three times it’s in your ear, but it’s not four-four.

MS: And in the melody you’ve gotten a lot of range and scope. You don’t have a typical blues melody so that’s not predictable.

ER: I was thinking of a wave kind of motion. I wasn’t thinking about its range explicitly. I wanted to give something to it that felt eternal.

MS: It undulates.

ER: These things that go into the compositional process!

Myron Silberstein, composer and pianist

MS: I know. “Love’s Philosophy” came about after I’d accompanied a few competitions where every other singer was doing Quilter’s setting of it. But I grew up watching Twin Peaks where that poem has a very menacing role and it didn’t feel inappropriate. Quilter has none of that darkness. He has all the exuberance of the poem, but you don’t get a sense of conflict. So clearly there are several ways of looking at the poem; maybe I had a way of my own.

Then I was on a train on vacation and a melody for “And the sunlight clasps the earth / And the moonbeams kiss the sea” came to me. The first line was clearly in E major but the second line was in F minor. But the melody as I was singing it felt tonal, even though it turned out to be a whole-tone scale. I had to get to the piano and see if my ears were fooling me. I wound up having to put the triads in inversion, but it worked. And then I had to make a piece of it, and the first four notes of that melody became the motif that tied everything together.

ER: When I write a vocal piece I start with the words and from there I get a sketch of a melody and form and then an accompaniment. It sounds like you work everything together?

MS: I think very vertically, but with anchor points. The melody has a direction it wants to go but I can’t start a melody without thinking of what’s underneath it. So I’ll think vertically for a couple of bars and then the melody will go on for a while, but I’ll have to fill in the harmony. Melody and harmony leave the start gate together and then the melody will jump two steps ahead of the harmony but it can’t go further ahead until the harmony catches up.

WANT TO SOUND ORIENTAL? Just play the black notes!

by Adam Gustafson

Where is the Orient? What does it sound like? The term Orient is an oversimplification, representing a plurality of unique cultures and geographies. It is odd to suggest, for example, that Russia and Polynesia share much beyond their being regions that are east of Western Europe. European countries such as Albania maintain a strong Muslim identity that could be classed as Middle Eastern as much it is European. Over eleven percent of Canada’s population is now comprised of “Oriental” citizens, begging the question: is Canada, at least in part, becoming an Oriental country? After all, if you follow the circle, all things are east of Europe.

This 1742 painting "The Chinese Garden" by Francois Boucher may show more about the pastoral ideals and fantasies of mid-18th century than about China.

Since 1978, when Edward Said published his seminal book Orientalism, the notion of Oriental has been reshaped. Once implying a geographic region, Orientalism is now considered a set of value judgments born from a European colonialist mindset. Indeed, “Oriental” isn’t a set of cultures at all, but  a set of values assigned to one culture by another. And while his understanding of the term, rightfully so, is as a western invention that sees all things Oriental as negative and conquerable, it might be more generic to state that Orientalism and the Orient has been as much an act of defining ourselves as it has historically been an act of defining another culture. The songs being presented in this cabaret are not out to capture the spirit of another culture. Rather, they show the hopes, fears and general identity of the cultures producing them. In short, these songs are more about us than they are about them.

Inherent in Orientalism is the idea of the Other, which is the exposure to an identity that lies beyond our notions of normal. Interactions with the Other happen quite often: country kids watch television about city kids and vice versa; Republicans watch Michael Moore movies. Interaction with the Other sharpens understanding our own identities and values by relief when those values are thrust upon (or against) those with whom we are interacting. This dehumanizing effect can assume both positive and negative characteristics. Ever wonder if all Native Americans, who were considered Oriental at one point, actually care as much about the seventh generation as media portrayals of them would suggest? By them, I of course mean they’re all the same. How is it that the same cuddly and wise Native American, who emerged only after the first Earth Day, was at one time considered a dangerous, heartless heathen who would scalp you if he had the chance? There is a reason that Custer gets the monument rather than Crazy Horse.  These identities are impositions rather than realities. They reflect the values of a culture imposing itself; they do not reflect the cultures being portrayed.

How does Oriental music sound? Is there an authentic Oriental sound? Orientalism, which is one culture’s fascination with another, is not a description of culture but an imposition. Sounding Oriental, then, is quite easy to do. Take a bunch of stereotypes and string them together. Boom. Oriental music. The opening pentatonic phrase in the pop hit “Turning Japanese” by The Vapors is indicative of a band sounding Oriental not because it sounds like anything from Asia, but because it makes a sound that we accept as Oriental. Think of Will Ferrell’s George Bush versus actual George Bush: Ferrell’s caricatures of Bush’s vocalisms are now accepted as more W than W. Knowing that Orientalism is a construct about the performer’s culture rather than the culture being portrayed helps to shape our perspective of the music. Rather than merely chalking up most Oriental music – remember that Oriental is a Western construct – to being misguided appropriation or often downright racist, we can look to these songs as reminders of how our culture views itself.

Despite the obvious stereotypes – the names, the costumes, the silly pentatonic flourishes and, well, the entire show – Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado is as much a satire of an uptight Victorian England obsessed with the reproduction of Japanese culture as it is about anything actually Japanese. Unfortunately, much like the legions of NASCAR fans who didn’t understand that Ricky Bobby was making fun of them, much of The Mikado’s satire was lost on Gilbert and Sullivan’s audience, and it was relegated to another example of cutesy Japanese pastiche, as can still be seen in John English’s 2003 production for ABC in which the opening number is turned into a statement of Western ignorance about Asians – which is in itself a statement about the producer’s own biases, but I digress.

1919 D'Oyly Carte Opera Company publicity poster for The Mikado. Illustration by J. Hassal.

If Gilbert and Sullivan were using cultural distance to avoid a direct satire, Puccini’s Turandot was an attempt to portray what much of Europe believed was a barbaric Chinese society in the early 1900s. China was in the public spotlight at the turn of the twentieth century, as it sought to re-invent itself as a nation. China’s growing pains were tumultuous and included the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 in which China – in a nice touch of the Other Othering someone else – demonized and tried to ostracize foreign influence from the country, resulting in the deaths of thousands of foreigners and the killing of thousands of Chinese soldiers as western powers put down the rebellion. Rather than dealing with the complexities of the time, Turandot dismisses Chinese leadership as fickle enough to kill over riddles – the only cure, the reintroduction of love into the life of its ruling elite.

On the other side of Turandot, Miss Saigon, which is based on the story of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly,  depicts the Orient as a victim of fickle U.S. power during the Vietnam Era. Miss Saigon doesn’t miss the mark by far in relation to Puccini’s opera, which during an age when colonialism was beginning to be questioned, asked Western culture to look at itself and the effects of its own policies. And while Madama Butterfly captures the early stages of colonial decline, it is Miss Saigon that offers the death knell, despite its being virtually the same story.

The Clash move us into the postmodern version of the Other in their attempt to call into question all modes of power as inherently corrupt, regardless of their cultural moorings. “Rock the Casbah” is an Orientalist account of censorship in the Middle East that is defeated by the universal power of rock. While this seems a straightforward knock to policies of the Middle East that any freedom-loving Westerner could enjoy – this song was praised by conservatives at the time – there is more to the story. One year earlier, the band released London Calling, a criticism of all things British and American, including nuclear power, financial insecurity and cultural paranoia – sound familiar? – suggesting that the postcolonial age became more about distrusting power than culture.

India: that wonderful place that gave us Yoga pants, cool George Harrison and yummy food. Long held as a place of spiritual escapism, Indian culture has been a focus for the West’s various identity crises for hundreds of years. Gustav Holst, who was at once a beneficiary of colonial Britain and respectful of the value of Indian culture, based many works on Hindu stories. This is a testament to the exposure that he gained by being a citizen of an occupying power. However, his sensitivity to that culture is a testament to how he valued it.

So how do we perform or hear authentic Oriental music? Musicians, more so than any other artistic medium, are obsessed with the idea of presenting authentic performances. So the theory goes, if we can understand the cultural context and truly understand the music being produced, we can provide for our audience an authentic performance. Thus, a folk song such as “Muko Yokocho” can be authentically performed for an audience in a pub in Chicago so long as the musicians learn the proper pronunciations for the words, the notes, etc. However, these acts of authenticity are still not about the culture being represented. As with the previous songs, even a performance is an assertion of cultural value by those performing and receiving the music. Despite perfect Japanese pronunciation and spot-on singing, “Muko Yokocho” as sung by VOX 3 is more an expression of an educated, upper-middle class need to reinforce notions of cultural and historical sensitivity, perhaps even superiority, than it is an authentic presentation of Japanese music. Woe be unto singer who mispronounces a single word. That no one listening understands the text in the first place (thus starving the entire room of the meaning and emotive affect that music and text combined can produce), is less important than giving an authentic performance. This begs the question, is faithful, accurate musical representation more authentic than a performance that aims to capture the spirit of the piece? Is it more authentically Asian to sing in Japanese or to feel what Japanese people feel? Is any of this possible?

In the end, no matter how many folk songs we incorporate, no matter how many times we call out the racist, colonialist or stereotypical qualities of an Orientalist work, the fact remains that we’ll be no closer to an authentic sound or representation of Oriental culture because presenting the other isn’t about that. The only authentic Oriental experience is that which comes from the West because it is a byproduct of Western culture. The reality is that the actual places that lie within the Western construct of the Orient contain any number of cultures and people and sounds and artworks that are as varied as anything. In short, we are more Oriental than the Orient.

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BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER, MORE: Around the World at Superhuman Speed

One of the most commonly heard memes today is that the world is getting forever smaller.  The rationale given is simple: people are becoming more closely connected by technology.  While steam power made the transcontinental migration of previous generations possible, now further inventions have accelerated the pace and practicality of such travel.  Jet lag aside, within the span of one day, I could hop on an airplane, sipping a soft drink while reading an iPad on a trans-Atlantic flight to Europe, then immediately begin a GPS-guided tour of the Italian countryside in a rental car, leaving enough time to catch a late-show on the television in my hotel suite.  In the course of such a trip, at least six creations would have aided either speed or comfort to the journey—items entirely unavailable when Jules Verne penned one of literature’s classic adventure novels, Around the World in 80 Days (a free download from Project Gutenberg is available here).  This begs the question: What causes people in our modern society to continue to read and enjoy this Victorian travelogue?  Are there any lessons for this faster, smaller world after all?

A nineteenth century steamship arrives in Japan, as depicted in this 1861 print, "Gaikokujin sen no uchi: jōkisen"

The book itself is easy to understand, with the plot hinging on a single wager: that the protagonist Phileas Fogg can journey around the world in precisely 80 days.  Fogg is introduced as something of an automaton.  The classic picture of a British gentleman, he hangs with society folk at the club, plays whist, and runs his life like clockwork.  Having fired a servant for bringing his shaving water at 84 degrees instead of 86, he engages the services of a Frenchman named Passepartout, a strapping (if bumbling) fellow with a big heart (and correspondingly small brain).  Fogg bets that he can make his world-spanning journey not out of any desire to see the sights, but because A) he can, and B) he is enamored of the increasingly ordered, mechanized way of things.

Interestingly, the character of Phileas Fogg may have been inspired by an American businessman, George Francis Train, who assayed timed travels around the globe four times.  Though the connection is not entirely documented, Train’s first trip in 1870 predated the publication of Verne’s novel by three years, and made newspaper headlines around the world.  Verne did confess that the idea behind the story came from an article he had read.  Further, Train and Verne had a personal connection, as both men were friends of the French author Alexandre Dumas (fils).  Upset that a newspaper woman, Nellie Bly, had made the trip in 72 days in early 1890, his journey a few months later was completed in only 67 days, a miraculous feat for the time.  By 1913, the record was broken by three other men, including Broadway producer John Henry Mears, who reduced the time to 35 days.  Regardless of the facts or figures behind the novel, none of these journeys would have been possible without British mapmaker George Bradshaw, who published a timetable of Great Britain’s rail system in the 1830s and for continental European railways in 1847.  The concise schedules we now pull up regularly on Orbitz, Kayak, or Expedia as we browse for travel connections may find their origins in the handy tome once referred to affectionately as “the Bradshaw.”

But I digress.  Once Fogg and Passepartout set sail on the first leg of their journey, Verne’s book takes on a very episodic cast, proceeding almost like a sitcom.  Each chapter has a title describing its contents, in which something goes awry (often at Passepartout’s bungling hands) and someone (usually Fogg, with a carpetbag full of cash) fixes the problem.  In India, through a series of misadventures, they interrupt a human sacrifice and gain a lovely female companion on their travels.  Dogged by a determined detective all the while, they wind their way by elephant, steam ship, and locomotive through Hong Kong, Japan, San Francisco, Omaha, and eventually back to London.  Aside from the exotic locales, one can almost envision Mrs. Garrett or Danny Tanner presenting a moral to the gathered ensemble as the plot threads are brought to a tidy mini-conclusion.  This is not to say the process of reading is monotonous; Verne’s jaunty dialogue and applications of (stereotyped) local color vary the proceedings, and plug along at a fast pace.

The linear progress of the narrative, ever eastward, shows an inevitable progress toward Fogg’s goal.  But the episodic digressions are actually where the charm of the tale lies.  Were the bulk of the story spent wandering the deck of a ship—watching the endless waves crash upon one another on the 22-day steamer trip from Yokohama to San Francisco, for example—we as readers would quickly tire of both Fogg and his journey.  Instead, we are regaled with colorful, unexpected episodes en route, as when a Mormon proselytizes the hapless passengers on the Union Pacific line, and is forced to watch his audience dissipate, one by one, until Passepartout is the only one remaining—and he too says “No, thanks” and vanishes.  Or when the protagonists encounter a violent mob in the streets of San Francisco, slugging it out over their choices for a minor political office.  For a readership that largely had not traveled, Verne successfully captured attention by providing not only fanciful scenery, but also authentic, amusing interpersonal interactions.  By the end of the story, love has (perhaps predictably) replaced travel as the focus—as our confirmed bachelor Phileas Fogg surrenders his tightly wound quirks to fall in love with Aouda, the Indian princess.

Original illustration by Alphons de Neuvill and Léon Benett, tracing Phileas Fogg's journey, from a French edition of Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days."

Lest I become Danny Tanner myself, the lesson learned from this adventure tale still seems quite relevant today—perhaps even more so.  As Phileas Fogg starts his madcap journey, he is controlled purely by the mechanical drive to achieve his goal.  Often, in our computer age, we too become cogs in a machine, mere tools to increase efficiency and better the bottom line.  Days are no more than numbers to be counted as we go about our business, recorded in papers filed, emails sent, products sold.  And as we ourselves travel, for work or pleasure, we often pack our itineraries as full as our stuffed suitcases, rushing to the top ten sights in just two days. Just like Jules Verne shows the gradual evolution of Phileas Fogg from automaton to kind-hearted soul, our attention to the rich detail of the world around us makes us more human.  Lingering in a Parisian street cafe for hours may provide richer vacation memories than seeing all six museums recommended in Fodor’s. True, technology allows us to plan, organize, and do things more efficiently, but this has not necessarily afforded us more time to do the things we love.  Instead, it has created a self-perpetuating cycle in which we struggle to do ever more things, ever more efficiently—and actually reduces the amount of time we have to just be ourselves.  To relax.  To see, to listen.  To explore.  To enjoy one another’s company.

Put simply, just because we can do something (such as journey around the world in 80—or even 4—days), it does not mean we should.  Sometimes greater rewards can be found in enjoying a process rather than achieving a goal.  As many grandmothers have instructed over the years, we could benefit from stopping and smelling the roses.   Though it seems odd for me to recommend in this electronic medium, I urge you to turn off the TV or the computer and take a walk.  Enjoy slow food with friends.  Perhaps your reconnection with the slower rhythms of life may require nothing more complicated than picking up a book…perhaps one by a nineteenth-century Frenchman named Jules.

 

THE OTHERS: Origins and Applications of National Stereotypes

It’s not easy to begin an article detailing national stereotypes.  Inevitably, the first that come to mind are the negative, often parodied stereotypes that make irreverent persons laugh, and more conventional folk recoil and check the room.   I’ll try to avoid crassness in my examples, but it may prove a challenge, especially in today’s politically correct society.

We are all familiar with these stereotypes.  We may have even encountered a few living incarnations in our time: The cheese-eating, smoking, snooty, American-hating, surrendering French;  the posh, tea-drinking, snaggle-toothed, foppish Brits; Mexicans as luxuriously mustached, sleepy, sombrero-wearing likenesses of Speedy Gonzales (and that all Hispanic-Americans are, of course, Mexican); the pug-nosed, diminutive, fiery-tempered Irish.  Last, but not least is the American stereotype: either obese, lazy, ignorant and loud, or lean, rich, greedy and merciless. Some of these concepts are so prevalent that a British graphic designer created an irreverent series of maps according to common stereotypes.  These viewpoints, while embarrassing and obtuse, took root somewhere in our past and spread.  Even those who reject these stereotypes are acutely aware of their prevalence in our culture.

While I have repeated some popular stereotypes, I did not invent them.  They have somehow become well-recognized in Western society, and left completely unquestioned within some American subcultures.  Stereotypes pervade every culture, every country, and all time.  They exist, in one form or another, due to our very nature as human beings.

Humans are instinctively compelled to categorize, identify and recognize patterns as a way of understanding the world around us.  This allowed us, as a species, a shared understanding of the natural world and how we might best survive in it.   We even see patterns that do not exist as a byproduct of this compulsion, and attribute qualities to an entire group that may only apply to a few.  Humans developed this psychological tool as a way to loosely define not only the natural world, but the nature of  complex, nuanced, foreign cultures.  It is a perpetually running program in our brains to differentiate “us” from the “others,” “safety” from “threat.”

As evidenced by the famous Robber’s Cave Experiment, this phenomenon is found even in the nature of children. When left alone in a group, they will develop an internal social hierarchy and a group identity.  In this particular experiment, two groups of boys, both unknown to the other, were left isolated until they have meshed as a group.   The two groups were then “accidentally” introduced to each other by the adults running the experiment.  Hostilities arose almost immediately; names were called, property was stolen and vandalized, and it nearly resulted in physical violence.  Boys in both groups were certain they understood the mentality and inner workings of the other group better than the other group understood theirs, and that they (the “others”) were inherently bad and strange.

Political cartoons have used national stereotypes to convey messages for centuries. This cartoon by Henri Meyer (1844-1899) satirizes European imperialism.

Seemingly, the result of the experiment was: this instinctive hostility arises when two groups are in competition for limited resources, and the result is often great attention to the perceived faults of the other group, but a lack of attention to those qualities that make the “Us” group similar to the “Other” group.  However, this breaks down if there is a third, greater perceived threat or a superordinate goal.  This was seen when the two groups of boys were told that their water supply had been compromised by vandals.  They worked together to repair it, when just moments before they had been poised to bludgeon each other with rocks.

Stereotypes, as uncouth as they are in modern society, seem to be the byproduct of far more primitive times, when we needed to make quick decisions about the nature of another group in order to survive [1].  Such instinctive behavior persists in us, as was shown by the Robber’s Cave Experiment,  as we judge ourselves against others, subconsciously assigning rank to each other in different social groups at different times throughout our lives.  It is, whether you placed stock in it or not, easy to recall who was considered “popular” or “unpopular” in grade school.  In adult life, steeped even further in social conditioning, we’re nigh-immediately aware of who is considered a little “strange” or “socially off,” even in a new group; we sense it in the behavior of not only the individual, but the group around him/her.  These instincts fuel our subconsciously strategic social behaviors; we instinctively seek our preferred social “position” within any particular group based on snap judgments of the existing members, and these relationships continue to influence our understanding of the world and ourselves.

This is our humanity.  Having instincts that may be contrary to our more intellectual, enlightened beliefs is all part and parcel of being human.  It is not that we ought to deny that we find humor in TV characters like Apu on The Simpsons, with his jovial and oft-repeated “Thank you, come again,” in an exaggerated Hindi accent while working the Kwik-E-Mart counter.  It is, however, our responsibility as an ever-globalizing, super-connected culture of human beings to educate ourselves in terms of cultural sensibilities.  “The Others” are often just “Us.”  “They” simply live in different circumstances and possess different backgrounds.  It is our duty as intelligent, social creatures to acknowledge that each of us deserves to be treated with basic human decency and respect, regardless of our flawed assumptions of one another.

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[1] Fear itself: the origin and nature of the powerful emotion that shapes our our lives and our world. Rush W. Dozier. St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN? An introduction to female composer Carlotta Ferrari

To thumb through the pages of any music history text, you easily could assume that only men composed music in Italy – or most anywhere, for that matter.  Where are the women?  Of course, some of them were onstage singing (though the Catholic church would prohibit women from singing in its choirs well into the twentieth century).  We have also heard of many women because they were married to famous composers…but if you want to find about female composers, you have to look a little harder.

A few years ago, I purchased a book of songs called Italian Art Songs of the Romantic Era.  Inside were some familiar and unfamiliar names—but amongst the rarities, there were the names of women! Immediately I fell in love with the song “Non t’accostare all’urna” which happened to be composed by Carlotta Ferrari.  The editor of the edition was kind enough to provide a little background information, but—being the curious one that I am—I had to know more.

Female composer Carlotta Ferrari (1837 - 1907)

Carlotta Ferrari was born in Lodi in 1837.  The city is located in the region of Lombardy, very close to Milan.  She studied voice at the Milan Conservatory with Giuseppina Strepponi (a name you might know, as she was the second wife of Verdi).  Likely, it is her study of singing which makes her songs so well-written for the voice; her arching lines and well-spun phrases indicate her familiarity with the vocal mechanism.  It should be noted, however, that she was also a pianist, poet, and writer. Eventually she relocated to Bologna and taught piano and singing.  This move from Milan is likely because Ferrari wished to compose opera; in the city of Milan a woman was not encouraged in this pursuit.  Perhaps the infamous demands of La Scala audiences did not appreciate women penning lyric dramas; in the university city of Bologna, we might infer that it was more tolerated.

At the age of 20, she composed, conducted, and in fact raised the funds to stage her opera Ugo in the mid-sized town of Lecco.  It was so well-received that she received commissions for other operas, a cantata, as well as a requiem for the king of Turin in 1868.  If one wanted to read the opera one could look to Ferrari’s own publications.  From 1878- 1882 she published her literary works in four volumes, Versi e prose.  The third volume of this collection contained the libretti to her three operas.

The most extraordinary thing about Ferrari is that her accomplishments were recognized during her lifetime.  A contemporary of Carlotta’s, writer Francesco Dall’Ongaro called her “the Italian Sappho” and composer Gualtiero Sanelli hailed her as “a Bellini in skirts.”[1]  In fact, the French composer Ambroise Thomas much admired her songs.  Another contemporary critic praised her thus: “Ferrari is lively, natural, with a remarkable talent brought to maturity as the result of her serious studies.  These enable her to express beauty in everything she writes.” [2]

On the VOX 3 program Viva Italia, you will be able to hear the song mentioned earlier in this article.  “Non t’accostare all’urna” was included in an album dedicated to Count Renato Borromeo, a Milanese patron of the arts.  It is interesting to note that although Ferrari was well-known for setting her own texts, this text is by the poet Jacopo Vittorelli.  The work adheres to mid-nineteenth  century conventions in many ways —the musical style, the ghostly subject of the text, and the drama.  But the expansive setting of the text, with its wide-ranging tessitura and brad dynamic range, raises this chamber song to operatic heights.  As  a female singer and musician, it is incredibly satisfying to be able to present the work of this extremely talented and versatile woman to our audience.

[1] The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Woman Composers.  Julie Ann Sadie & Rhian Samuel, eds. W. W. Norton & Company, 1995.

[2] Italian Art Songs of the Romantic Era. Patricia Adkins Chiti, ed. Alfred Publishing, 1994.