Raising Eyebrows And Roofs Poem by gershon hepner

Some raise eyebrows, some raise roofs,
some offend and some evoke
applause from multitudes. Aloof,
I smile, and make a private joke.
With haikus I might get a grip on
the roofs and eyebrows that I raise,
but since I am not from Nippon,
I choose to turn an English phrase,
evoking rarely much applause,
though often tending to offend
the people who mistake each clause
for ones I’m careful not to send.

Written before a concert of music by Thomas Adès performed at the Disney Hall on May 27,2008. The program included Arcadiana, Op.12, a string quartet performed by the Calder String Quartet, Living Toys, op.7 and the Piano Concerto, In Seven Days (soloist Nicolas Hodges, with video by Tal Rosner) . All three pieces were gorgeous, but the first was perhaps the most stunning. Commissioned by the Endellion Quartet, it was first performed by them in 1994 at the Cambridge Elgar Festival. It has seven movements, Venezia notturna, Das klingst so herrlich, das kling so schoen (inspired by Monostatos's Aria from the Flute) , Auf den Wassser zu singen (inspired by Schubert Lied) , et in Arcadia ego...tango mortale (inspired by two Poussin paintings and Carmen) , L'embarquement (inspired by the Watteau painting) O Albion (inspired by Nimrod from the Enigma variations and the Cavatina from Beethoven’s Opus 130 Quartet)) and Lethe (wordplay on Hades, resonating with Ades's name) .

Lawyer and lutenist Howard Posner writes program notes for the LA Philharmonic. Regarding a previous the Thomas Adès concert focused on music by Couperin and performed on May 21,2008 he wrote regarding Couperin’s “Apotheosis of Lully”:

By 1725, when it was published, Italian music had been a battlefront in French society for three generations. The Italian and French styles were drastically different in ways that are not so obvious to modern ears. Italians were louder, their playing and singing was more outgoing, and they prized virtuosity and extremes of expression. The more reserved French sought elegance and refinedment. The French raised their eyebrows while Italians raised the roof. Italian music attracted French devotees not only because of its intensity, but because the French power structure disapproved of it. In a society as closed and repressed as the ancient régime, Italian music became a way of expressing dissatisfaction, if not dissent, and lining up with counterculture. Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) in 1700s France was a bit like rock and roll in 1960s America.

5/27/08