Give It Five Stars

In the realm of customer satisfaction surveys, there are no wrong answers, which is nice. But have you noticed that the questions are invariably phrased in such a way that they are almost impossible to answer at all? "On a scale of one to ten, how likely would you be to recommend this [concert-motel-restaurant] to your friends?" Well, recommendations tend to be a yes-or-no thing. In any case, it depends on which friends.

Even giving out stars isn't as easy as it might seem.

Not long ago we rented a cabin in Park Rapids, Minnesota, with some friends, and I was later asked to evaluate our stay. There was a problem with the rental: the septic tank froze right after we got there, putting the bathrooms and the sink out of commission. Hard to give that place five stars. On the other hand, we can hardly fault the owner for a problem that arrives unexpectedly and is widespread in Minnesota at this time of year. He graciously allowed us the use of the bathroom in his place, a hundred yards away through the woods at the top of the hill. Most of us made use of a convenient snow bank nearby, but  by all accounts his house was—dare I use the word?—untidy.)

There were a few other problems. The cabin was listed as having accommodations for eight but was equipped with only five forks. It had only one wine glass—a serious deficiency—and there was a desiccated fox-fur coat hanging in the closet, which reminded me of Psycho for some reason; a Jim Dine bathroom poster sitting on a chair in the living room; and a wedding picture in the kitchen—man, woman, child—none of whom resembled the owner in the slightest.

On the other hand, the cabin had large windows looking out across a frozen lake and was costing each of us only $25 per night. I might have given it three stars, but I want the owner, a potato farmer by trade, to do well. He's obviously a beginner on the vacation rental scene. He was close to despondent over the plumbing freeze-up, but also a bit shocked at how much it was going to cost to fix it. Three-and-a-half stars? 

I sometimes receive satisfaction surveys from the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra following a concert, and the issues are always the same. The music is interesting but varied in quality, the introductory patter often a little too long, and the program-rustling in the audience invariably annoying. These outings, considered as a whole, remain enriching. Four stars?

Not long ago Hilary and I attended a performance of Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ at the Ordway Concert Hall. The timing couldn't have been better. It was two days before Easter, and it also happened to be Haydn's birthday. We arrived early and caught an informative Fanfare lecture given by a professor from Macalester College. 

The performers, members of the SPCO, had chosen to do a stripped down version of the piece for string quartet, and they had also decided to play it on the gut strings in widespread use during Haydn's time. During his opening remarks violinist Kyu Young Kim told us that he and his colleagues almost had the impression, due to the slow-moving and often somber character of the piece, that they were merely playing for themselves, and cellist Jonathan Cohen remarked that he considered the performance as an act of personal meditation. However, the choice of gut strings worked against such an effect. They tend to groan where metal strings sing, and due to the fact that they go out of tune easily, there were long pauses between several of the movements while the musicians retuned.

I was a little bored.

But that's not the end of the story. After the concert, on the advice of a friend, we drove up the hill for lunch at Tori Ramen, a hole-in-the-wall place that was bubbling with activity. Tasty food, too.

And that night, as we were sitting down to a pre-Easter dinner (lamb shoulder chops with asparagus risotto) I put a recording of Haydn's Seven Last Words on the stereo. It fit the moment perfectly.

Perhaps this reaction reinforces the remarks of the musicians that the piece is more of the personal meditation than a concert crowd-pleaser. And maybe it's easier to appreciate a fine but quiet piece of music when you're eating a nice meal in your own home than within the stuffy confines of a concert hall.

I think another factor might also have been in play. Haydn wrote The Seven Last Words for orchestra, and later produced a stripped down version for string quartet. I believe that's the version the  SPCO musicians were using. But the one we were now listening to had been created from the score of the oratorio version, which Haydn wrote years later after having visited London and been impressed by Handel's work in that vein.   

Attacca Quartet cellist Andrew Yee, who did the new arrangement, remarks in the liner notes to this version that "in examining the arrangement for string quartet, one is struck that this version bears little of the careful crafting typical of the father of the string quartet. The string parts from the orchestral version remain mostly intact, [but] the crucial wind parts are left out almost entirely."

Yee goes on to suggest that the oratorio version, crafted ten years after the original, conveys "Haydn's reflections, and perhaps reconsiderations, during this hiatus of one of his most personal and intimate pieces." That's the version Yee used to create the quartet we were listening to that night. The changes include adding double stops here and there, adjusting unison passages to octaves, and adding melodies and counter­melodies extracted from the oratorio score that are not present in Haydn's earlier versions.

Whatever the reason, this new rendering, which I bought years ago on a whim in a little shop in Stanton, Virginia, during a road trip through the Shenandoah Mountains, and  listened to only once, was now approaching the sublime.

So, how are we to rate the event? The SPCO performance wasn't outstanding, but the programming was, if only because it brought renewed attention and appreciation to a forgotten musical masterpiece.

 

Four-and-a-half stars?