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LISTEN Magazine Focuses on Dance

David Vernier

Whether it’s Baroque suites or Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, much of history’s greatest music has been rooted in dance. The Summer 2012 issue of Listen magazine (available May 28th) takes dance as its theme, ranging from the golden age of Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev to the work of contemporary choreographer Matthew Bourne, from the delights of Prokofiev’s magical, moving Cinderella to new dances for music by Steve Reich and David Lang at the Guggenheim Museum. Editor-in-chief Ben Finane conducts an entertaining and provocative cover interview with the most musical of today’s choreographic masters: Mark Morris. And there are stories from a wide world of dance, whether it’s the tale of a Toronto opera house founded by two dancers or a trip to Moscow’s Bolshoi with a dancer from Texas.

Going beyond dance, the summer issue includes a visit with chanteuse Ute Lemper backstage at Carnegie Hall, plus the story of a Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist bringing music to the homeless and the mentally ill. The magazine also offers an inside look at composer Krzysztof Penderecki’s collaboration with Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, as well as a rundown of the summer’s top festivals. And, as always, Listen provides expert recommendations of the best new recordings, including young Israeli mandolinist Avi Avital’s foray into Bach and a 50-CD boxed set celebrating the evergreen achievements of the Mercury Living Presence label.

In his cover interview, Mark Morris – who has choreographed dances to music from Purcell and Rameau to Lou Harrison and John Adams – talks about how Handel is kinder than Bach, how he found the fun inside Bartók and how Haydn’s Seven Last Words on the Cross is one of his favorite pieces of music. The choreographer recalls how his grandmother played ragtime on the piano, and he points out that “dancers cannot ruin the music. It can’t be done. However, the musicians can completely destroy a dance. . . ‘How do you want it tonight? Too fast or too slow?’ That’s the joke.”

In his feature story about dance in the Guggenheim Museum’s “Works and Process” series – which has paired young choreographers with composers Steve Reich, David Lang and Elliott Carter – veteran dance critic Robert Johnson quotes Reich recalling the special experience he had when Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker worked with his Violin Phase in the 1980s: “Everybody gets the phasing and the formal structure, but she got inside the melodic character of the music and its emotional character. I was very moved, and I felt like someone understood more about me than I did.”

In Jens F. Laurson’s interview with conductor Emil de Cou – who leads Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap and the Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts – the musician makes a case for ballet as a vehicle for forward-minded art, not just the umpteenth production of The Nutcracker. Mentioning his love for the far corners of the ballet repertoire, De Cou says, “Take Prokofiev’s Prodigal Son – fantastic music that, when you hear it, captivates you. It’s funny that geniuses like Tchaikovsky, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Shostakovich all took this art form very seriously….”

Beyond ballet, Bradley Bambarger explores the mutual admiration and influence of august Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki and guitarist-composer Jonny Greenwood of top art-rock band Radiohead. The two share a new Nonesuch album, which sets Penderecki’s iconic avant-garde works Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and Polymorphia alongside two Penderecki-inspired pieces by Greenwood. The Radiohead guitarist finds Penderecki’s early music “magical,” but orchestras of the 1960s didn’t necessarily see the light, recalls Penderecki: “The new sounds required new methods, new notation. But this was ahead of its time. The orchestra of Italian radio refused to play the Threnody. . . But I was young, and I believed in being progressive. And, fortunately, I wasn’t lonely for too long.”

Elsewhere in the issue, Listen details a fascinating day in the life of broadcaster Fred Child of NPR’s Performance Today, and the magazine recommends mandolinist Avi Avital’s new Bach album as well as a new collection of Arvo Pärt’s music from conductor Paul Hillier, the latest in Naïve’s complete Vivaldi edition, beautiful piano trios by Czech composer J.B. Foerster and haunting Gesualdo motets from the Hilliard Ensemble.

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