MTT Scores Again.
A few years back, we were flipping the channels, and we ended up on a program on PBS. We recognized Michael Tilson-Thomas and at first, we were thinking, hey, it’s our MTT, what is he up to? We stayed a while for the local angle, as we would have had we caught, say, the Warriors on ESPN, or Gavin on a Sunday morning political show, or SFist Jer on Check Please!. But then we got hooked: we had to watch the thing till the end. It was a behind the scene look at how MTT and the orchestra prepare for a Tchaikovksy symphony, and boy was it well made: the piece was placed in a historical context, there were ample excerpts of the orchestra playing, you would get a good feel for the piece, and the things to notice in the score and in its interpretation were highlighted, with MTT or the orchestra members giving a short yet articulate explanation.
Great TV is rare enough that it does not go unnoticed, and MTT and the SF symphony re-upped for a new series of TV shows, which starts tonight on KQED with an episode of Keeping Score about Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, aka MTT goes to Vienna.
We were able to watch the show, and it’s as addictive as the first one. The original show would visit the musicians in their private homes with their family as they rehearse, but this one is more music-centric. Tonight the musicians speak in front of a studio screen. MTT is a congenial host, walking us around in the chambers of a Vienna castle, sitting at a piano to detail his interpretation of the score, or conducting from the Davies symphony hall podium.
MTT’s interpretation is sweeping: the Eroica is about life and death. Then again, what piece of art isn’t? Yet, it provides a useful angle to dig into the piece, based on biographical elements and Beethoven struggle with a bout of depression shortly prior to writing the symphony. We are usually more comfortable with a Derrida-influenced tack: the score is everything, the life of the artist is only fluff. But MTT makes a convincing case. Anyway, what matters is not whether a given interpretation is spot on or a bit of a stretch, but that the show explains how a composer structures a piece and how a conductor can shape the performance through his interpretation of the score. Conductors, they don’t just wag the baton. MTT provides one reading, but it is not intended as a definitive, end-all one. It is only one key to open the door of the music to a wider audience.
After watching the show, you will want to hear more of the music. Lucky you, KQED will broadcast a performance of the symphony right after the rerun of the show on Sunday! You could also purchase the CD, but you MUST visit the Keeping Score web site. This is a trove of information. The thing we liked the most: you can read the score while the orchestra plays, with a karaoke-like bar highlighting the current bar (a quibble: the karaoke mark is always to the left of the bar --and the beat--, which we found a bit disturbing as we read the music in advance), and you can click to highlight the melodic themes or see in a color coded scheme the different keys that Beethoven use for different moods. It’s really neat, you don’t even have to know how to read sheet music, you just hear the tonality switch when the color changes.
Keeping Score will have two more episodes this season, one featuring Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring on November 9th and one featuring the music of Aaron Copland on the 16th. The corresponding pages on the website will open one week prior to the TV show. Shows are run at 10pm on Thursdays (dang, too late for the kids on a school night), and then again at 12pm on Sundays, with an entire uninterrupted performance following.