In which art imitates life

Last week Mary and I enjoyed the Toulenc Trio for the second time at our fabulous local theater, the Ross Ragland.  I hadn’t remembered Toulenc from their first visit two years ago, but I slowly realized that I’d heard them before as the concert went on.  This is happening with my brain more and more, and I’m keeping an eye on it, so to speak.

Poulenc is a woodwind trio made up of Vladimir Lande, oboe; Irina Kaplan, piano; and Bryan Young, bassoon.  They’re based out of Baltimore and are more or less typical of what I think of as the first-rate second-tier musical talent we regularly get out our way.  Which is to say, for example, Young is principal bassoonist with the Baltimore Symphony but probably wouldn’t make the cut for New York or Washington National.  Still, to our rustic ears, you’d never know the difference.  In many cases, I’m not convinced there is a difference.

Poulenc started with two pieces from the late-Baroque and early classical periods. I listened politely but failed to ignite.  After intermission, though, they came back with three pieces from the 20^th century, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed: French composer Jean Francaix; excerpts from a filmscore by Shostakovich; and two especially wonderful tangos by Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla.  Lande explained that these are not tangos to be danced to.

After the concert, we talked with the musicians in the lobby and bought a CD from them, Poulenc Plays Poulenc, which they autographed for us.  I was especially interested in the amount of travel such musicians do, and Lande briefly rolled his eyes and said he was just back from a twenty-concert tour of Latin America in which he conducted Shastakovich.  So immediately I thought of Guanajuato, and sure enough, he had conducted there for Festival Cervantino.

Is this a small world or what?!

Regrettably, he said, he hadn’t been able to enjoy the city because he was off the next day to the next concert.  Regrettably, I said, I hadn’t heard his concert, probably because I was at one of the jazz concerts instead.  I really should go back one year soon and study the program more carefully, because every night during the festival there are a dozen or more events worth going to see, and it’s limiting to stick to only one genre.

Still . . . .

So for some reason I felt a personal connection to Lande only because we’d been in the same Mexican city at the same time, but it once again led me to ponder over what are the motivations and rewards to the musicians who keep up the travel schedules that are typical for these troubadours.  What keeps them going?  After traveling to twenty Latin American capitals in about as many days and conducting major symphony orchestras, Lande and his two fellow musicians (one of them his wife) set off on a West Coast tour for which, I learned, they landed in Sacramento and rented a car.  From Klamath Falls, they were driving the next day on icy roads to Moses Lake, Washington for another concert.  If you’ve ever been to Moses Lake, you might share my amazement at this fact.

I chatted about this with bassoonist Bryan Young, and he said some of their best audiences are to be found in the smallest venues.  He mentioned Coos Bay, Oregon as a concert they still talk about.  And I must say, they got a very enthusiastic reception here, although there couldn’t have been a hundred people in the audience that wintry night. 

I suppose people like them have to perform and people like me have to go out to hear them. 

Art is like life in this way.  It will do whatever it takes.