Lewis on Brahms

BY THE TIME THE PIANO MAKES ITS ENTRANCE in Brahms’s Concerto No. 1, we’ve been through a great deal of tumult. The piece is in D minor, emphasized by a timpani roll on D echoed by long notes in low strings. But the first theme, introduced by the violins and cellos, plays havoc with the tonal center, especially when a trilled A-flat shows up every couple of bars, doubled by a trilled D-flat in the cellos.

But it’s really a C-sharp, which comes into play when that theme is repeated. This is the funky third tone of the concerto’s dominant-seventh A-major chord, which Brahms typically gives us in plangent inversion, thus throwing that C-sharp to the bottom. There’s considerable restlessness in the majesty of this opening, even down to the built-in uncertainty of the many trills. We feel a sense of resolution only when the soloist enters, quietly, ninety-one measures into the piece. “Of course we’re in D minor,” the piano says, dancing gently in the composer’s ballade voice. “And we really weren’t very far from it at all.”

This isn’t a showpiece, but it demands virtuosity of the highest caliber. It makes sense for Paul Lewis to be playing it, because he’s a pianist for whom the virtuoso moment lies in communicating the essence of a work, and not just its flashy architecture.

We saw this on March 18 at Schenectady’s Union College, where (after a hugely successful all-Beethoven recital last year) Lewis played a recital that included Liszt’s “Dante” Sonata as its finale. Not Liszt’s flashiest-seeming work, but a piece whose intense technical demands well serve its intense emotional content. It’s a work of orchestral dimension, and Lewis summoned sounds from the piano that invoked brass and drums and strings.

Get in the ‘Cue

From the Restaurant Vault Dept.: We’re only going back three years for this one because it’s important for you to celebrate the warming weather by satisfying your most basic culinary urge – barbecue. Here’s a good place to start.

                                                                                                 

ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH MY MEAL – a pulled pork sandwich and half-rack of ribs ($17) – I napkin dabbed my brow and considered my status. The that’s-enough voice was murmuring, somewhat despairingly, but it was obscured by the need to continue to assault my senses with smoked meatstuffs.

Photo by B. A. Nilsson

It gets on your fingers; its aroma delights your nose. It awakens dormant neurons in the limbic brain. Although our species in general and this human in particular require little provocation to eat more than what’s needed, barbecue may be even more persuasive than ice cream and cake.

I considered the half-sandwich, still huge, and the several meaty ribs remaining and decided to pack it in. My thoughtful wife whisked the leftovers into a container she’d secured. Her own – the remains of a chicken, of course – already was packed. I allowed her to enjoy the illusion of me as someone proud to exert a measure of self-control. What I truly am is a failure, because I never shall tackle Wagon Train BBQ’s Graveyard Burger.

Getting Sentimental over Tommy

From the Recorded Vault Dept.: It appears now that most of the big-time record labels have run out of reissues. Boxed sets used to rain upon us, replete with scholarly notes and alternate takes and previously unissued material; now it’s a trickle. Back in the LP days, RCA Victor, the home label for Tommy Dorsey and many other swing-era artists, made a valiant attempt to issue TD’s complete output in a series of two-record sets (described below). Ten years ago, on Dorsey’s centenary, the label’s then-current incarnation issued a three-CD set that featured a nice, if brief, survey of a nice variety of the bandleader’s work. Here’s my decade-old review.

                                                                                     

TOMMY DORSEY’S HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY came and went with nary a murmur, which isn’t surprising. In entertainment terms, a century has become a unit of measure with something seemingly Pleistocene at the other end, a point of view created, however inadvertently, by the recording industry. But Dorsey wouldn’t be remembered at all if it weren’t for recordings, a well-chosen set of which was issued in commemoration.

He was a hot trumpet player in the 1920s who put that instrument aside in favor of the trombone, on which he developed a matchless way with ballads. As a bandleader, he was tough and impulsive, easy to alienate, quick to patch things up. He hired some of the era’s greatest talent for his big band, which churned out an amazing array of hits beginning in 1935, popularly culminating in his recordings with a young Sinatra in the early ’40s – yet it was also Dorsey who gave a young Elvis one of his first TV appearances.

Back in the ’70s, RCA began a reissue project intending to cover Dorsey’s entire recorded career, but it died after eight two-record sets that only made it into early 1939. Many of the recordings were forgettable nonsense, yet there’s a combination of craftsmanship and worthy jazz talent that makes any Dorsey side worth hearing. Still, I wouldn’t have wanted the job of confining my reissue picks to three CDs.

Little Dog Found

From the Culinary Vault Dept.: Are you in the mood for some hot dogs? The secret of the little wieners we’re talking about is both that they give more snap per square inch of dog consumed and their unusual size throws off your rationing count. Where you might content yourself with a pair of full-sized frankfurters, you could find that it takes a half-dozen of these babies to slake your craving. This was written in 2003; both establishments are still going strong. The below-mentioned Troy Pork Store has closed, but Helmbold’s (also in Troy) now is providing the dogs in question.

                                                                                                

WE’RE DEALING WITH SHEER SENSUALITY HERE. It begins with the soft warmth of a bun, perched between fingers and thumb. A sweet aroma of onions and spices rises from the contents, a fat finger of a hot dog covered with mustard and chopped onions and homemade meat sauce. As you bring it to your lips, the aroma deepens as the sour smell of the mustard eases in.

Photo by B. A. Nilsson

And then you take your first bite. It’s a ritual as solemn and as complicated as savoring sashimi, and it should be conducted with as much dignity. First your lips make contact with the meat sauce, and you should sneak a moment just with that flavor – a sensation enhanced by having such a strong presence of it under your nose.

Then you bite. The hot dog casing is just firm enough to protest briefly before yielding to your teeth, at which point a jet of roasted meat flavor mixes with the rest, prolonged by the spongy bread of the bun. Your second bite confirms the tastiness of the first; the third one finishes it off.

These dogs are barely four inches long. That’s why you can buy two of them for a little over a buck. The Troy Pork Store has been making these mini-sausages for years, but they need that meat sauce to really come alive.

With Sword or Gun

From the Back of the Vault Dept.: Thirty-some years ago, composer Tom Savoy and I wrote a musical titled Presenting Lily Mars, based on a Booth Tarkington novel that harkened back to Tarkington’s theatrical days in the early 1900s. It told the story of an aspiring actress who rises through a company’s ranks thanks to her talent and charm, but whose rise proves disruptive. The book I fashioned was overlong and clumsy, and my lyrics (to Tom’s delightful melodies) were similarly clunky. But here’s a lyric from a song that we cut early on in the proceedings, which was to be sung as part of a show within the show. I share it here to remind myself how shamelessly I tried to emulate the lyrics of W.S. Gilbert, even when I had to force the hell out of scansion and rhyme.

                                                                                               

SEVENTEEN LONG YEARS AGO, my life in France was grueling;
Our fortune was extremely low, my father dead from dueling.
My mother fell too easily for the flatt’ry of another;
How horrible the way that he beguiled my charming mother!
And I am but my father’s son, and I guard my mother’s love –
This scoundrel was a nasty one, so I slapped him with my glove.

The Stare

IT HAPPENS WHENEVER I ENTER a convenience store or restaurant or laundromat or – really, any place where two or more people are gathered. It takes place within a particular geography: the rural county where I live and its neighboring farming areas. It looks like this: As I cross the threshold, all of the faces turn towards mine, expectantly. More than expectantly: they seem to seek some kind of salvation, and stare at me as if I’m their last hope.

It’s unsettling. The stare persists long past the moment when politeness suggests you should look away. I’m the one who wrenches my eyes away from this gaze and that one, seeking a neutral place on which to focus.

This isn’t the saloon stare we know from Westerns. There’s no overt hostility on display. This stare seems to ask, “Are you here to rescue us?” Although I’m sure I’m reading into it.

I never encounter this in an urban area. Indeed, some places – I’m thinking of Manhattan’s tonier neighborhoods – fail to recognize my arrival at all, and this includes those ostensibly hired to sell me something or wait on me, depending upon the type of establishment I’ve entered. Oh, there may be a bit of expectancy displayed when I enter an urban bar, but, as I’m clearly not going to satisfy anybody’s dreamboat requirements, such gaze as there might be flickers away instantly.

Three Worlds of Music

From the Musical Vault Dept.: During the past few days, we heard from composer Vincent Plush and violinist Stephanie Chase as they prepared for a 1989 Albany Symphony concert, conducted by then-musical director Geoffrey Simon. Here’s my Schenectady Gazette review.

                                                                                              

TWO VERY DIFFERENT STYLES of 20th-century composition were displayed at the Albany Symphony Orchestra concert Friday evening when works by Leo Sowerby and Vincent Plush were performed. Both composers faced the challenge of shrugging off the influence of Europe, and did so with contrasting results.

Geoffrey Simon

Sowerby’s “Symphony No. 2" was written in 1927. It’s a three-movement work that hovers uncertainly between Brahms and the noisy dissonance that constituted American music for many composers of that era. The second movement, for instance, features what should be a lovely melody, introduced skillfully by French horn player David Saunders, but the tune takes an unattractive turn every time it threatens to sound pleasant.

The piece would sound very dated were it not for a bluesy quality to some of the writing, proof that Sowerby was moving in the right direction to shake the Germanic influence.

This symphony offers the players an opportunity to stretch out as one tutti after another kicks the forces into high gear. For rambunctious playing, however, Plush’s “Pacifica” can take on all comers.

Chasing Beethoven

From the Vault Dept.: Yesterday’s post reprinted my 1989 interview with composer Vincent Plush, who had enlightening and envy-provoking things to say about the state of music in his home country of Australia. He was in the Capital Region for a performance of his tone-poem Pacifica by the Albay Symphony; he recently noted that that was the last time he’s been in this area. Also on that ASO program was Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, performed by Stephanie Chase, who grew up in the same Connecticut town as I did. The old-home-week portion of my interview with her, written for the Schenectady Gazette, didn’t get into the piece, but it was fun to catch up with her.

                                                                                                

ALTHOUGH STEPHANIE CHASE performs Beethoven's mighty Violin Concerto with the Albany Symphony Orchestra this Friday and Saturday, it was near the bottom of the list of choices.

Stephanie Chase

Not that she has any objection to playing it: as she explains it, she and ASO music director Geoffrey Simon were talking about a very different facet of the repertory when her appearance with the orchestra was first mentioned.

“In our first discussions,” she said, “he said, ‘I understand you like playing contemporary works.’ I said I did and we thought of a few concertos: Berg, Stravinsky, Panufnik, and a couple of others. Then he called again and for one reason or another each of the pieces we’d talked about wouldn’t do. Somebody with the orchestra didn’t like it; whatever. So he asked me to look at other pieces.”

Conductor and violinist already had established a good rapport when Chase appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1986 with Simon on the podium. They have recorded together once and are planning another that features three big pieces for violin and orchestra: the concerto by Glazounov, Bernstein’s “Serenade” and Ravel’s “Tzigane.”

Australia to Albany

From the Vault Dept.: The issue of America’s musical identity has dogged this country since its founding, and, more than any other topic, has revealed a deep insecurity. We attempt to categorize our music, we’ve tried to assign it an intellectual caste system, we seem to do all manner of things to it except listen. It’s different down under. I had an ear-opening conversation with Australian composer Vincent Plush in 1989, on the eve of an Albany Symphony performance of one of his works, and here’s the piece I wrote for Metroland back then.

                                                                                                 

THANKS TO VINCENT PLUSH, Australians are better informed about American music than are most Americans. His broadcasts on Australian radio – hundreds of hours’ worth – have inspired an sharp increase in the number of American works programmed by Australian orchestras.

Vincent Plush

The Albany Symphony Orchestra returns the favor this weekend. Plush’s Pacifica will be performed as part of the orchestra’s observance of Australia’s bicentennial. “Last year about a dozen Australian composers were based on campuses throughout the U.S.,” says Plush, “and I took an appointment at Rollins College in Florida because it was the quietest. There wouldn’t be another composer within 150 miles, which meant I would have to hear no contemporary music.”

Plush is in the area this week and spoke over afternoon tea about the piece – and Australian music in general. Despite the seeming British-ness of the set-up he’s a revolutionary who has evolved a musical identity based in part upon defying the European traditions.

“In the mid 1960s it occurred to several of us who were writing music in Australia that Europe, being 1600 miles away, really shouldn’t be regarded as a major influence. I mean, we’re in a country where there’s almost no snow and the Fiji Islands are nearby. What’s led to an Australian sound, then, is a new attitude that you don’t have to obey European rules or American rules. You can have your own voice without apology or condescension.”

Enjoying the Burden

From the Food Vault Dept.: The seasonal eateries are coming back to life, which means that you can crowd into Kay’s on Burden Lake where there’s a party atmosphere the whole summer long. Possibly a bit muted by our late-arrival snow, but I’ll enjoy Kay’s pizza in any weather. Here’s my 2011 review. I’m sure the prices have changed.

                                                                                        

IF YOU LIVE IN, grew up near or frequently visit the Burden Lake area, you’re already nodding your head in anticipation of a good review of a place you revere. That’s what it is. That’s what it has to be. Gourmet fare? Hardly. Fancy dining? Far from it. A completely unique and satisfying experience? You bet. Provided you’re not ochlophobic.

Photo by B. A. Nilsson

The crowd probably begins in the parking lot, as those intending to leave remain caught up in chatter with friends, some of whom may be in line for a table. As you press closer, you see that the dining room looks full, its long red-and-white check-covered tables lined with people and pizzas and pitchers and plates. Others crowd the bar; some (younger, disenfranchised) work the videogame consoles.

If you’re new to the place, the prospect of a seat of your own will appear daunting. Don’t be discouraged. “First come, first served,” hollers one of the young, busy servers, abandoning you to what seems to be a non-line going nowhere. This is when you plunge in and have faith. And get ready to meet people, because chances are that the space you find will be at a table with someone else’s party.

Churrasco: At Your Service

YOU WILL HAVE SPENT THE DAY working hard – herding cattle, perhaps – and you’ll come to the table feeling ravenous. Even then, dinner will unfold like a dream, with an endless series of servers stopping at your table to slice a succession of succulent meats. More filet mignon? Here you go. Parmesan-crusted pork loin? Don’t mind if I do. Leg of lamb? Sausage? It keeps on arriving for as long as you signal your readiness to keep on eating.

Slicing the picanha.
Photo by B. A. Nilsson

This is a churrascaria, a type of restaurant that originated in Brazil, with tableside carving from skewers (rodizio) of a slow-cooked variety of meatstuffs (churrasco). Add to that an imaginative, well-tended salad bar that includes soup, plenty of vegetables, and Brazilian antipasti, and you’re in as good a buffet situation as you’re likely to find. Texas de Brazil is an international chain of more than 40 such eateries, with an Albany, NY, unit in Crossgates Mall not far from Lord & Taylor.

Evandro Caregnato, the chain’s culinary director, shares his personal history with the cuisine and over 70 recipes in his book Churrasco (Gibbs Smith), and he’s inviting you to cook these dishes at home, secure in the knowledge that you’ll still keep coming back to the restaurant.

That is, after all, where your expectations are set, and a recent visit to the Albany branch of Texas de Brazil set mine high. The restaurant sits on a corner space that offers the mall equivalent of patio dining. Inside is a bar area with a generous wine display; in the dining room’s center sprawls the rectangular salad bar, topped with a huge, colorful flower arrangement. It was an uncrowded Thursday evening, but the staff showed nothing but eagerness as were greeted and shown to our table, taking a route that allowed us to see the grilling area.

Glen at Twilight

Photo by B. A. Nilsson | 26 January 2016

Last Suppers

From the Communal Table Dept.: It’s time to celebrate betrayal, death, resurrection, rabbits, and eggs, while one considers carefully what foodstuffs one might be consuming. Suppose you had certain knowledge that your next meal would be your last? I pondered that in this piece from three and a half years ago, written to celebrate the End of the World, according to a misguided interpretation of the Mayan calendar.

                                                                                                   

“Just coffee and a slice of toast, thank you. Oh, and perhaps a few grapes. I hate to disappoint the newspaper-reading public, but it'll be too early for the conventional hearty breakfast. The appointment is at 8, is it not?” – Louis D’Ascoyne Mazzini, "Kind Hearts and Coronets."

MAZZINI IS ABOUT TO BE HANGED FOR MURDER, and therefore chooses the meal with the confidence that it will be his last. Not many of us enjoy that privilege, succumbing to unexpected endings or wasting away to a point where the food choice probably courses through a tube.

But with the confidence that tomorrow (Friday) spells the end, you’re no doubt looking over menus and ingredients. It’s difficult to find precedent. Most of the last meals we know of come from death row, and range from the artistic simplicity of murderer Victor Feguer’s request for a single unpitted olive to murderer-rapist John Wayne Gacy’s banquet of a dozen fried shrimp, a bucket of original recipe KFC, a side of french fries and a pound of strawberries.

Fie on Goodness!

The State of the Stage Dept.: Three years ago, I Metroland-reviewed the Glimmerglass Opera’s production of “Camelot,” but denied you, the vast blog-reading public, a look at the piece. This is rectified below.

                                                                                                   

THE LANCELOT PROBLEM keeps the Arthurian writers and scholars on their toes. According to Thomas (“Tom of Warwick”) Malory, he slavishly follows the Pentecostal Oath; by the time T.H. White gets hold of him, he’s initially ugly and undesirable. And Lancelot’s godlike goodness doesn’t keep him from pursuing an adulterous relationship that kills 100,000 knights as it brings down a kingdom.

Andriana Chuchman and David Pittsinger
Photo by Karli Cadel.

As librettist Alan Jay Lerner wrestled a chunk of White’s The Once and Future King into stage-musical shape, he made the dramatically satisfying choice to introduce Lancelot as a self-absorbed buffoon (“C’est moi!”), which unfortunately sets up a trail of inconsistencies to the big ballad (“If Ever I Would Leave You”) and the let’s-get-it-over-with finale.

What’s needed is a strong actor with a strong voice who can radiate charm, and Nathan Gunn gives us all that as well as a goofily appropriate French accent. “Camelot” well fits the Glimmerglass mission to revisit classic golden-age musicals that are strong on score and, if Lerner and Loewe didn’t hit another “My Fair Lady” home run with this one, they created a set of songs that became part of America’s musical consciousness during the Kennedy administration, with a cast album that pushed Bob Newhart out of the number-one slot.

In Memoriam: Jackie Baldwin

Beat the Drum Slowly Dept.: The news of the death of chef Jackie Baldwin is too recent as I write this to include much detail, but I at least can reflect upon her legacy by sharing two pieces I wrote about her, 17 years apart. Most recent was an overview of dining at RPI, which she helmed for a baker’s dozen years, and you’ll find that here. In 1991, my wife and I visited (the long-gone) L’Ecole Encore on Albany’s Fuller Road, where Jackie impressed us with her excellent interpretation of some classic French fare.

                                                                                              

Jackie Baldwin

IF YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT MOOD, you can be pleased fairly easily. Bad burgers and watery beer seem great on a lovely mountainside with the right company. But when Susan insisted we go out to dinner one particular evening last week, I was in no mood to do so and knew that nothing would seem pleasant.

Besides, L’Ecole Encore would require me to sit in a dark, stuffy room and eat overly Frenchy stuff. With heavy sauces. And on a warm, summery night, I’m in the mood for cold soups and less-demanding entrees. “We’re going anyway,” said Susan.

I’m glad she insisted.

Did you know that L’Ecole has an outdoor dining deck? I didn’t, but was happy to take the host’s suggestion that we sit there. I’ve sneered at such accouterments in the past, having overlooked some pretty ratty parking lots in the name of al fresco dining, but L’Ecole Encore’s view of Stuyvesant Plaza is masked by trees and looks especially nice when the setting sun is ablaze.

No silly fruit drinks available – “We don’t have a blender at the bar,” said Mark, our superb waiter, but we ordered a half-bottle of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay from the generous selection of wines and regarded a menu (and specials) that included two of our favorite soups – pistou and gazpacho.

Here’s the Beef

From the Deli Dept.: Three years ago at around this time I wrote about Helmbold’s Market and Old World Provisions, and it’s been my source of corned beef and pastrami ever since. In fact, there’s a huge slab of corned beef brisket in the oven as I write this.

                                                                                          

THEY’RE AT THE PEAK of corned-beef craziness right now, so busy churning out our favorite St. Patrick’s Day dinner that even the executives have donned cap and gown to work the processing line.

Photo by B. A. Nilsson

Thus it was that Ross Shuket, a company vice president, was wearing a sanitary overcoat, hairnet and gloves when he met me recently at Helmbold’s Market in Troy. “As you can see,” he said, “corned beefs are coming right off the line. This morning, full truckloads of meat came in, by the end of the day, full truckloads of the product will go out.” We were peering through a window onto the production floor, which seemed to be a blur of slabs of pink.

Corning beef is a process of curing the meat in brine, the production of which has been stepped up here for the past couple of months. “We take the briskets or the rounds from the packer,” says Shuket, “and trim it to our specs. Then it goes into a pumping room where we put it through a water-injection process. It cures overnight. It’s our proprietary flavors that make it special.”

The market is located around the back of a warehouse and processing plant located in a residential area off Campbell Ave. The store has been there for nearly 50 years, a neighborhood-style deli that has been serving generations of loyal patrons.

The Old Middle

From the Vault Dept.: Incorporating music into a non-musical play is a challenge that was well met by Susan Dworkin in “The Old Mezzo,” which had an excellent production in Pittsfield a few years ago. Let’s revisit my Metroland review.

                                                                                          

AT THE FUNERAL of renowned conductor Pauletta Kripalova-Canti, the absence of her famous mezzo-soprano friend Alyssa was noted by several of Alyssa’s students, who summon the courage to query their instructor about it as a master class is about to begin. The answer is in a script the students were handed earlier, a script they enact as this framing device gives way to a story of indifference and betrayal.

Eileen Schuyler (foreground) and cast.
Photo by Joseph Schuyler

Susan Dworkin’s multi-layered play examines the too-common conflict between art and  regressive politics. It’s not a comfortable journey: the ugliness of the conflict is meted out slowly, setting up quick epiphany that climaxes the 85-minute, intermissionless piece. It’s also presented in a way that keeps us questioning, keeps us guessing. The students speak with contemporary tropes, yet the young men sport wing collars and black ties.

Alyssa speaks with an eastern European accent, which she maintains as her story unfolds, but the students – who play the roles of her parents and others – retain their today’s-America sounds, especially in the case of Kripalova-Canti, known as Pow (the radiant Elizabeth Donnelly), whose speech is almost jarringly filled with Valley Girl-ish sounds and phrases.

Stone Beginnings

From Deep in the Vault Dept.: From my inaugural year as Metroland’s restaurant reviewer, here’s my first stop at The Stone Ends, a place that flourished for a while under a variety of owners and chefs before slipping into a succession of less-ambitious guises, and then going dark. Which is a shame: it’s a quirky, charming place, which I also visited in 1989, 1991 and 2000.

                                                                                     

THANKS TO 30 YEARS in the same location, Ralph Junco’s Stone Ends restaurant has achieved something available to none of the culinary youngsters: it has the redolence of a place where a lot of good food has been prepared, that “grandmother’s kitchen” kind of aroma.

Chef Roger Herweth. Photo by Drew Kinum
Lousy photocopy by me.

Which instantly brings me back to my own cooking days at a Connecticut restaurant with an even longer history but much the same scent - a nice Proustian assciation. Plus, there was Coleman Hawkins on the PA, his classic “Body and Soul” recording. Nice.

A trip to the Stone Ends is a trip back in time, of sorts – to a restaurant era that featured a large, meaty menu and perhaps a cocktail pianist; a product of the 1950s. Like a vintage car, it has stood a test of time to come back in style. This is a restaurant with fins, and proud of it.

Yes, the walls at either end of the large dining room are of mortared stone; the floor is flagstone, too. The ranch-style interior features orange lanterns, a decorating touch from another era. The carts and copper chafing dishes aren’t just, antiques - they’re treasures.

But something that’s very new about the place is the man in the kitchen. Executive chef Roger Herwerth has been there about six months, a graduate of the food-service program of SUNY at Cobleskill. He has taken the classic ‘50s menu and brought it into the ‘80s without resorting to nachos and fried potato skins: he emphasizes freshness and quality products.

The Music of the Maid

From the Slush Pile Dept.: Some pieces get lost in the pipeline. Here’s one I wrote for Metroland towards the end of 2012 but which never ran, although I included the CD set described below in my year-end Best Classical CDs roundup that year, and it continues to be a delight to revisit.

                                                                                  

HAVING HIT ON THE PROFITABLE MODEL of presenting a single-themed, multi-CD set in attractive book form, tireless musicologist and conductor Jordi Savall continues to top himself with the often-arcane subject he’s able to cover in each successive release. On the heels of Mare Nostrum (“Our Sea”), itself a richly varied musical exploration of disparate Mediterranean voices comes his eighth such set, a tribute to the music of the time and place of Joan of Arc.

Unlike its predecessors, this program, spread across two CDs, follows a single narrative: in this case, the story of Joan’s visions, political activity and martyrdom, drawing from contemporaneous texts performed by a trio of actors interspersed (or overlapping) with the brilliantly realized music.

We follow Joan the Maid from her birth through the battle at Orléans (1429) and her trial and execution (1431), all of which took place before she was 20. The program then takes us through the finish of the Hundred Years War in 1453 and Joan’s “rehabilitation” three years later with a vigorous anti-English finale.

Winter Farmers Markets

From the Vault Dept.: I’m champing at the bit just as much as you to get those seeds in the ground, and the way we’ve been teased with hints of spring makes it no easier. But the farmers markets are carrying on, so let’s revisit my overview of the Albany-area scene from 2008.

                                                                                         

IT’S MORE THAN GOURDS AND COLLARD GREENS. Winter produce is tough-skinned stuff, those spaceship-like spears of Brussels sprouts perhaps the most emblematic. And while it’s true that these are good things to eat and you celebrate the season by eating them, you’ll find much more than cold-weather comestibles at those farmers markets that choose to run through the winter.

Photo by B. A. Nilsson. These are among the all-local
ingredients that went into my 2008 Thanksgiving dinner.

The phenomenon of these markets has been considerable and impressive, not only offering consumers fresh, locally grown items but also presenting the growers themselves. And bakers. And cheesemakers. And craftspeople.

Nothing beats being able to admire a loaf of bread and while you’re learning its provenance. For some, an accurate ingredients list is vital. For some, there’s a wonderful sense of community in the act of eating locally grown and/or assembled stuff.

The number of local farmers markets has exploded, giving us an unprecedented warm-weather bounty. I’m sure you’ve seen it: booth after booth of vegetables, fruit, meat, cheese, honey and milk, along with artisan products like crafts, sauces, jam, clothing – anything made by hand.