A Stranger in Several Worlds

I wanted to bring you Handel, that’s what I wanted to do—but could I? In our technical world, shouldn’t it have been possible to run over to YouTube, knock on Joyce DiDonato ’s door, and ask her to sing Piangero la sorte mia, from Giulio Cesare?

So I tried that, and got the following message:

500 Internal Server Error

Sorry, something went wrong.

 A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.

If you see them, show them this information:

AB38WEMsl82BNwFlnjAjN_pSfOuzgzsjh-uXy0c70ARLtmFIagYeFkcKKttC

ALP2h396ZpWP8XoSMkcQ9JGv70FtwSE5jLFTu0SCmDkn4NxfaBz_ZAk0SOmQ

CbZxXa1qKY3oqivKmBYPBY1-BHQ3uEBkBD_PQbMDVw2igi8a_D445LlPl5FS

NBV_hUh6mxXpv8CUIgKG2PaQ9-W8CeGWQB6jUQ6Af6hf6jl144HmIxOfUIay

7sKJxVlvoRMPDsXcqqzFTn1s6nk082qRs1PSbLhWd0IEUogPlHQ5lsUPQfku

jBQgskIc4PhRrS5ojflfavNV4FfT_NFQSUFO0fI5u0ykmWYomVrb_7PkefQD

In fact, that was only the beginning of the message, which went on with twenty lines or so of gibberish that only a team of highly trained monkeys could understand. And speaking of the team of HTM’s—aren’t we being just a bit facetious, over there are Google / YouTube? Granted, a “500 Internal Server Error” is nothing more than a passing cloud in my day, but what if it hadn’t been? What if I had needed, seriously needed, Piangero? There are times you do, you know…..

And it’s no use telling you that Piangero is a knockout of an aria, since what are words, next to the wrenching sadness of the aria? Suffice it to say that Cleopatra—yup, that’s our girl—has lost both a major battle against Tolomeo and has also lost her man, Cesare, as well. And the music is something only a manic-depressive—and a rapid cycler as well—could write. The middle section is as wild as the two outer sections are vein-cuttingly tragic. And DiDonato, who is singing over the top of her game, just nails it.

But it wasn’t to be, Dear Reader, or was it? Because in looking up the lyrics for Piangero via Google, I saw a link for a YouTube clip of DiDonato singing the aria. Would it work if I clicked it?

Cautionary note—following a long tradition, this is undoubtedly bootlegged video from a New York performance, and thank God for it. Yes, the camera bobs up and down and about—at times decapitating DiDonato, at times losing her altogether. But if you can’t stand it, close your eyes and bask. Oh, and if you’d like to know what she’s singing, well—here are the words:

Why then, in one day,
I am deprived of magnificence and glory?

Oh, cruel fate!
Caesar, my beloved idol is probably dead, Cornelia and Sextus are defenceless
and cannot give me assistance. O God! There is no hope left in my life.

I will bemoan my fate
so cruel and brutal
As long as there is breath left in my body. And when I am dead
and become a ghost, I will haunt
the tyrant night and day.

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And so the Gods who rule over bloggers relented, and let me bring you the clip above. Or who knows—the highly trained monkeys may have come through at last.

Because, for much of the morning, DiDonato declined to sing—sending error messages instead. In fact, everybody at YouTube was spending the morning on the golf course, since I was getting error messages all over the place.

I wasn’t supposed, you see, to bring you Handel, since there was another composer who needed a boost up. And though I’ll listen to the fabulous countertenor Philippe Jaroussky any day, why did I have to listen to him sing works by a guy named Reynaldo Hahn?

Or rather, who was Reynaldo Hahn? Really, if Jaroussky is singing him, shouldn’t I have heard of him? But there he was, the only clickable thing on YouTube this morning. So it was time to check him out, as can you by clicking the clip below.

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Wow, what a find! And what’s the dope on Hahn?

Well, we can start with what Proust said: “everything I have ever done has always been thanks to Reynaldo.”

True, they were lovers for two years between 1894 and 1896 and then lifelong friends, but it’s still a tribute.

And, in addition to being a fine composer, Hahn—a Venezuelan who later became a French citizen and served in World War I—was a conductor of, especially, Mozart. Oh, and according to Wikipedia, Hahn had “a special gift of attracting important people to his side.”

Nice!

And he must have had the gift from an early age, because he was able to enter the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten, even though the Conservatoire frowned on child prodigies, and had refused as a child the great Franz Liszt. In the course of his 72 years, Hahn became, in the words of Wikipedia, a “composer, conductor, music critic, diarist, theatre director, and salon singer.”

Lastly, and tantalizingly, here’s what Wikipedia had to say about Hahn:

By the age of nineteen in 1894, Hahn had written many songs about love; however, his worldly sophistication masked shyness about his own personal feelings. He had close intimate friendships with women, and they were clearly fond of the gallant and charming young composer. Cléopatre-Diane de Mérode, a famous beauty of le beau monde and three years older than Hahn, inspired him to write: "I worship her as a great and perfect work of art". Despite this tribute to her, he reportedly loved her only at a distance his whole life. The famed courtesan Liane de Pougy referred to Hahn in her diary as the "sweetness in her life." Though close friends, their relationship ended when de Pougy married. Hahn famously told her: "Goodbye Lianon. I hate married people." Hahn was a closeted homosexual, even though in his personal letters he was frequently critical of homosexuals and homosexuality.

Is it that last sentence, with the information that he was a “closeted” homosexual (even in Paris, at that date could there have been anything else?), which makes me hear such sadness, such wistfulness in the song? Consider—he was Venezuelan, but living in another country. He was a gay man living in—well, another country. He drops his close friends when they marry. And he seems to have lived a life hidden even until the present day. I’ve heard of all the people Wikipedia lists as having been friends with Hahn, but Hahn?

A dark horse, indeed….

Royalty on Several Levels

OK—two guys. One grows up in a very poor town in Venezuela, gets introduced to the violin as a child, and goes into an amazing program, El sistema. He goes on to do well, becoming the director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which recently extended his contract. But he doesn’t forget his roots: he’s also the director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra.

If you know classical music, you know Gustavo Dudamel; if you don’t, you won’t. But the other guy in the clips below you will know: Prince Henry of Wales. Now, as you can see below, given a baseball jersey / t-shirt and crowned Prince Harry of Harlem.

Well, the world needs heroes, and it may be that we need them more than ever. So Harry, along with his brother and sister-in-law, decided to create something called Coach Core, just before the Olympics in London last year. The three turned to an organization called Greenhouse, which works in London’s poorest communities, and which runs programs…well, wait. It’s easier just to copy / paste what they say about themselves…..

Greenhouse puts inspirational coaches into schools and community clubs to work with 8 to 18 year-olds across 10 areas; Football, basketball, table tennis, volleyball, judo, swimming, drama, multi-sports for young people with special educational needs, tennis and athletics.

Great idea, hunh? So now, the Coach Core program has its first  group of coaches: 23 college age kids who are working with Greenhouse Master Coaches to learn the arts and skills of coaching, as well as the fundamentals of child development and how to instill core values. Oh, and also something else—fundraising.

Well, that’s a tremendous story. But watching the clip below, I noticed the banner behind the speakers’ rostrum—Harlem RBI, it said. Right—time to check that out.

And what a find! It all started in 1991, when some volunteers got together and created two baseball diamonds in an abandoned lot. The next year, there was a year-round youth mentoring program for kids at risk, a newsletter, and a summer literacy program.

Important, because kids of middle class or upper class families do all right during the long summer vacations. They either progress academically or at least maintain what they’ve got. But kids in Harlem have nothing to do, and when they hit the classroom in September, they’re one or two reading levels behind. So here’s the deal: the 700 kids in the program read during the morning, and play baseball during the afternoon, for 6 weeks during the summer. It’s first come, first served—and importantly, it’s free.

But it’s not just about the summer program—the organization established a charter public school in 2008, and its kids are doing great. Here are the results:

•   Our fourth graders increased their proficiency in Math by 91%

•   Our fourth graders increased their proficiency in English Language Arts (ELA) by 154%

•   Our fourth graders made the second biggest jump (out of 90 NYC charter schools) in improvement in ELA, and sixth biggest jump in improvement in Math. That's big progress!

•   Our third graders made an incredible showing in their first year of testing, outperforming last year's third grade cohort by double digits.

In both English and Math, DREAM fourth graders outperformed the school district average and the New York City average.

Because the summer program is old enough, the first graduates are coming back and telling the kids: “I was where you were. I buckled down and studied and graduated from high school and now I’m in college and nobody has ever done that before. Not in my family, at least….”

Oh, and how are they doing? Well, as you can hear in the clip below, 100% of the kids in the program graduate from high school, and 97% go on to college. That’s in a community where 50% of kids drop out of high school.

It makes a difference, you know, to see a guy from the ‘hood come back and tell his story. And yes, it’s cool when a British prince comes through the neighborhood, but it might be totally cool when Mark Teixeira comes onto the field. Look, the guy signed a $180 million dollar contract with the New York Yankees, and he’s got a World Series ring (don’t know what that is, but I assume it’s important).

Well, for a lot of kids, it’s baseball that teaches you team building, discipline, getting back up to the plate after you’ve struck out. For me, it was the cello, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, and several inspiring men and women—all important.

Something similar happened to Gustavo Dudamel. Here’s his story, taken directly from his website:

Named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2009, Gustavo Dudamel hails from humble beginnings in the small town of Barquisimeto, Venezuela. Born in 1981, he began violin lessons as a child with José Luis Jiménez at the Jacinto Lara Conservatory. He continued his violin studies with José Francisco del Castillo at the Latin American Academy of Violin. His conducting studies began in 1996 with Rodolfo Saglimbeni and, the same year, he was given his first conducting position, Music Director of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra.  In 1999, he was appointed Music Director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra and began conducting studies with the orchestra’s founder, Dr. Abreu; a few years later in 2004, Dudamel was brought to international attention by winning the inaugural Bamberger Symphoniker Gustav Mahler Competition. These early musical and mentoring experiences molded his commitment to music as an engine for social change – a lifelong passion.

You know, guys like Dudamel and Teixeira are my heroes, much more than a prince. Oh, but sorry—I’ve forgotten the real heroes, those two teachers in the clip below, who walk into a classroom every day, take attendance, call Billy out for screwing around, give permission for Ginny to go to the bathroom, and then start teaching.

Nobody else in our society is more important.