SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY  The month of January is dedicated to music that was inspired by America… Margaret and I came away from the afternoon performance saying to each other that today was just about as good as it gets…  “Making America Great Again” is a phrase that is at least redundant… and probably is a silly idea.  Americas is wonderful, and so is American art, and so is art that has been made by human beings for all times and for all places.  Trump doesn’t have to “make” America great again.  The American idea, flawed as it has been at times, makes me proud to be American. We have lagged behind in our commitment to equality and fairness for all people, but the American idea is beautiful and eventually we get it right.  Our American Music is especially wonderful. Today’s concert was called “Americans and Paris.”  Two works by Aaron Copland, both of which were composed partly in Paris but definitely with American themes,  one by George Gershwin which was also definitely American, and a new piece by Andrew Norman, a contemporary American composer.  

Today’s program included A suite from Billy the Kid by Aaron Copeland, and a piano concerto also by Copeland.  Wow!  Both were wonderful and made me proud to be American.  George Gershwin’s American in Paris was definitely a tour de force.  The honking taxis turned symphony hall into a Parisian Motorway.  Andrew Norman’s Suspend played by Iron Barnatan was one of the most intriguing pieces of music that I have ever heard.  It was a 20 minute piece for piano and orchestra.  Norman took an idea from Emanuel Ax, an exploration of two melodic fragments, F-A-E (frei aber einsam, free but lonely) and F-A-F (frei aber froh, free but happy).  Barnatan began by “playing” the piano, pressing the keys, but we heard nothing.  Gradually he began to press keys so we heard his playing.  Then the Pianist pulled the members of the orchestra into the piece until finally they were playing together.  

The program explains it: “At first the sounds exist only in the pianist’s own mind, but little by little they become real to the rest of us.  The pianist very gradually imagines an orchestra into existence, and over the course of many minutes that imaginary orchestra assumes its own voice and identity, transforming from a shadow, a resonance, an echo of the piano into a powerful and distinct musical entity that threatens, at the work’s climax, to swallow up the pianist.The piece ends with a coda in which the pianist freely meditates on the F-A-F motive and the orcestra, player by player, is released into a world of free, uncoordinated playing.”

SUSPEND was/is worth hearing over and over again.  Hearing it again is something I will do as soon as I can find a recording of the piece.