http://theedge.bostonherald.com/artsNew ... eid=138445
Pops rocks: Boston music institution goes from stodgy to edgy
By Keith Powers
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Elvis Costello.
“And I’m sure you’ll enjoy Kentucky rockers My Morning Jacket.
“And how about a hand for Aimee Mann, former Top 40 hitmaker for Boston band ’Til Tuesday!â€
Il Sogno, Boston May 10
Video report -
http://cbs4boston.com/video/?id=20275@wbz.dayport.com
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http://theedge.bostonherald.com/musicNe ... eid=138786
Elvis pops into the building
By Dana Bisbee
Thursday, May 11, 2006
A rock legend showed his classical side last night.
Elvis Costello opened the Boston Pops’ 2006 season at Symphony Hall with excerpts from his first orchestral work, a classical score written for a ballet version of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.â€
http://cbs4boston.com/video/?id=20275@wbz.dayport.com
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http://theedge.bostonherald.com/musicNe ... eid=138786
Elvis pops into the building
By Dana Bisbee
Thursday, May 11, 2006
A rock legend showed his classical side last night.
Elvis Costello opened the Boston Pops’ 2006 season at Symphony Hall with excerpts from his first orchestral work, a classical score written for a ballet version of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.â€
http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/arti ... h_strings/
Elvis with strings
May 11, 2006
His many collaborations -- with Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, Bill Frisell, Anne Sofie von Otter, and wife Diana Krall, to name just a few -- have left even Elvis Costello a bit confused. ''I'll have to make sure I put the right head on when I perform tonight," said the artist formerly known as Declan McManus prior to appearing last night with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops. No longer the angry man he was 30 years ago, Costello's a composer now, touring in support of his first full-length orchestral work, ''Il Sogno." (He dressed the part yesterday in a dark suit and a gray fedora.) ''Can I tell you something? I can't stand rock music," admitted the British-born singer, who prefers jazz and folk these days. And of his partnership with the Pops? Costello said some of his best-known numbers could have been recorded with strings. ''I'm not dressing [the songs] in clothes to make them more important than they are," he said. ''An orchestra is just another band."
Elvis with strings
May 11, 2006
His many collaborations -- with Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, Bill Frisell, Anne Sofie von Otter, and wife Diana Krall, to name just a few -- have left even Elvis Costello a bit confused. ''I'll have to make sure I put the right head on when I perform tonight," said the artist formerly known as Declan McManus prior to appearing last night with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops. No longer the angry man he was 30 years ago, Costello's a composer now, touring in support of his first full-length orchestral work, ''Il Sogno." (He dressed the part yesterday in a dark suit and a gray fedora.) ''Can I tell you something? I can't stand rock music," admitted the British-born singer, who prefers jazz and folk these days. And of his partnership with the Pops? Costello said some of his best-known numbers could have been recorded with strings. ''I'm not dressing [the songs] in clothes to make them more important than they are," he said. ''An orchestra is just another band."
EC w/ Boston Pops May 10 2006
partial list of performances (starting with the stuff that seems relevant)
Boston Pops
Keith Lockhart, Conductor
Suite from <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i> (Mendelssohn):
Scherzo --Nocturne --Wedding March
Suite from <i>Il Sogno</i> (Costello)
Prelude --Overture --Puck One --Oberon & Titania --The Conspiracy of Oberon & Puck --Puck Two --The Spark of Love/Sleep --The Wedding
Elvis Costello, Steve Nieve, Paul Gill, James Gwin
Still
All This Useless Beauty
Watching the Detectives
My Flame Burns Blue
She
God Give Me Strength
I Still Have That Other Girl
Alison/Tracks of My Tears
Hora Decubitus
---------------------
i was just behind the cheaper of the rich people seating. wow, they get tablecloths and a bottle of bubbly on their tables! but sitting at a table was nifty, just because it's the 'real' pops experience. honestly, i don't see the point, they play, you get food and drink, and when you have food and drink you make noise and chatter a bit and glasses clink. an interesting ambiance for "classical" music. i know, originally much of this was played in areas where people were making noise anyway, and maybe this isn't so odd, but i really couldn't see the point of going regularly, regardless of the cost, which weren't cheap.
glad i went. will be at the pavilion show - got a ticket in yesterday's presale. will not be at the cape cod show, pain in the *** to get to.
Boston Pops
Keith Lockhart, Conductor
Suite from <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i> (Mendelssohn):
Scherzo --Nocturne --Wedding March
Suite from <i>Il Sogno</i> (Costello)
Prelude --Overture --Puck One --Oberon & Titania --The Conspiracy of Oberon & Puck --Puck Two --The Spark of Love/Sleep --The Wedding
Elvis Costello, Steve Nieve, Paul Gill, James Gwin
Still
All This Useless Beauty
Watching the Detectives
My Flame Burns Blue
She
God Give Me Strength
I Still Have That Other Girl
Alison/Tracks of My Tears
Hora Decubitus
---------------------
i was just behind the cheaper of the rich people seating. wow, they get tablecloths and a bottle of bubbly on their tables! but sitting at a table was nifty, just because it's the 'real' pops experience. honestly, i don't see the point, they play, you get food and drink, and when you have food and drink you make noise and chatter a bit and glasses clink. an interesting ambiance for "classical" music. i know, originally much of this was played in areas where people were making noise anyway, and maybe this isn't so odd, but i really couldn't see the point of going regularly, regardless of the cost, which weren't cheap.
glad i went. will be at the pavilion show - got a ticket in yesterday's presale. will not be at the cape cod show, pain in the *** to get to.
http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles ... _the_pops/
Costello is true to himself with the Pops
By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff | May 11, 2006
Elvis Costello's aim is true. These days he's appearing with orchestras and finishing up an opera, but he isn't selling out or entering a new phase; he's just showing another side of himself that was latently there all along.
Last night Costello was the guest artist at the 121st opening night of the Boston Pops. The program featured a 15-minute suite from his ballet score, ''Il Sogno," ''The Dream," which is based on Shakespeare's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream," after which Costello sang nine songs spanning his career, from ''Alison" through his first post-9/11 song, the harrowing, machine-gun rattle of ''Hora Decubitus," lyrics written to music by Charles Mingus.
Costello is the most successful composer to cross over from popular music into orchestral composition since Gershwin, and he did it all himself. In the early '90s, the singer-songwriter overcame his resistance to learning to read music and write it down. ''Il Sogno" is not just a series of good tunes, although it is full of them. Instead it is a series of themes that develop from a generative harmonic progression in order to tell the story -- which also advances through interactions of orchestral colors (''Puck," Costello said with a grin last night, ''is a jazz fairy" and he puckishly dedicated the performance ''to everyone who has ever fallen in love with an ass").
Perhaps the music could use a little more texture and inner workings, and the full score is more persuasive than the suite, which lacks development. Though the music is rooted in British folk tradition, it is delightful and dodgy rather than reassuring, and there is a touch of magic in it. Keith Lockhart led a performance that could probably have used another rehearsal, but it was enjoyable anyway.
Costello looks a little like Henry Kissinger these days, and compared to a plastic contestant on ''American Idol" he has no moves, but he's still romantic, even sexy, because what he has to offer is musicianship, brains (which develop his elusive, allusive lyrics), and a compelling baritenor voice, slightly husky, sometimes slightly flat, but strong all the way up to solid high B-flats in ''God Give Me Strength."
Costello is aware that not all of his old songs will work with a full orchestra, but feels that some like ''Alison" and ''Watching the Detectives" are fulfilling their potential -- ''Detectives" now has a louring orchestral menace worthy of that master of musical noir Bernard Herrmann. ''She" also flowers, although Costello joked that asking him for a straight romantic ballad was like asking Peter Lorre to play the Cary Grant role in a movie -- actually ''She" has some pretty scary/sad lyrics. Perhaps the most touching song was ''My Flame Burns Blue," an old Billy Strayhorn tune, as twistingly chromatic as anything in Schoenberg, with new Costello lyrics curling around it like smoke.
Excerpts from Mendelssohn's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream," deftly conducted and played, did not eclipse Costello. A video ''postcard to Boston" by Susan Dangel and Dick Bartlett accompanied John Williams's ''Hymn to New England" -- there were cheers for the Red Sox and the Patriots when they appeared on screen. Suppe's delightful ''Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna," launched by Martha Babcock's elegant cello, earned a nice hand. Lockhart and the Pops held their own.
Costello is true to himself with the Pops
By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff | May 11, 2006
Elvis Costello's aim is true. These days he's appearing with orchestras and finishing up an opera, but he isn't selling out or entering a new phase; he's just showing another side of himself that was latently there all along.
Last night Costello was the guest artist at the 121st opening night of the Boston Pops. The program featured a 15-minute suite from his ballet score, ''Il Sogno," ''The Dream," which is based on Shakespeare's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream," after which Costello sang nine songs spanning his career, from ''Alison" through his first post-9/11 song, the harrowing, machine-gun rattle of ''Hora Decubitus," lyrics written to music by Charles Mingus.
Costello is the most successful composer to cross over from popular music into orchestral composition since Gershwin, and he did it all himself. In the early '90s, the singer-songwriter overcame his resistance to learning to read music and write it down. ''Il Sogno" is not just a series of good tunes, although it is full of them. Instead it is a series of themes that develop from a generative harmonic progression in order to tell the story -- which also advances through interactions of orchestral colors (''Puck," Costello said with a grin last night, ''is a jazz fairy" and he puckishly dedicated the performance ''to everyone who has ever fallen in love with an ass").
Perhaps the music could use a little more texture and inner workings, and the full score is more persuasive than the suite, which lacks development. Though the music is rooted in British folk tradition, it is delightful and dodgy rather than reassuring, and there is a touch of magic in it. Keith Lockhart led a performance that could probably have used another rehearsal, but it was enjoyable anyway.
Costello looks a little like Henry Kissinger these days, and compared to a plastic contestant on ''American Idol" he has no moves, but he's still romantic, even sexy, because what he has to offer is musicianship, brains (which develop his elusive, allusive lyrics), and a compelling baritenor voice, slightly husky, sometimes slightly flat, but strong all the way up to solid high B-flats in ''God Give Me Strength."
Costello is aware that not all of his old songs will work with a full orchestra, but feels that some like ''Alison" and ''Watching the Detectives" are fulfilling their potential -- ''Detectives" now has a louring orchestral menace worthy of that master of musical noir Bernard Herrmann. ''She" also flowers, although Costello joked that asking him for a straight romantic ballad was like asking Peter Lorre to play the Cary Grant role in a movie -- actually ''She" has some pretty scary/sad lyrics. Perhaps the most touching song was ''My Flame Burns Blue," an old Billy Strayhorn tune, as twistingly chromatic as anything in Schoenberg, with new Costello lyrics curling around it like smoke.
Excerpts from Mendelssohn's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream," deftly conducted and played, did not eclipse Costello. A video ''postcard to Boston" by Susan Dangel and Dick Bartlett accompanied John Williams's ''Hymn to New England" -- there were cheers for the Red Sox and the Patriots when they appeared on screen. Suppe's delightful ''Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna," launched by Martha Babcock's elegant cello, earned a nice hand. Lockhart and the Pops held their own.
http://www.boston.com/ae/music/blog/200 ... rules.html
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Declan rules
Geoff Edgers is getting to be a regular fixture around these parts. Here, courtesy of the Exhibitionist, is some audio from Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus:
Here's ( via above link) a 60-second slice of Elvis Costello rehearsing "Watching the Detectives" with the Boston Pops. Enjoy.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Declan rules
Geoff Edgers is getting to be a regular fixture around these parts. Here, courtesy of the Exhibitionist, is some audio from Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus:
Here's ( via above link) a 60-second slice of Elvis Costello rehearsing "Watching the Detectives" with the Boston Pops. Enjoy.
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Boy With A Problem
- Posts: 2718
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veronica wrote:
Are you sure that wasn't Henry Kissinger?Went to POPS last night. I was in the balcony right over the stage.
During the 15 min (or so) part where the orchestra played the suite from Il Sogno, Elvis strolled in and sat down in front of me. I got to look over his head to see the stage. Pretty cool!
Everyone just needs to fuckin’ relax. Smoke more weed, the world is ending.
......and you didn't ask about the similarity between 'Party Party' and 'International Echo'? Missed opportunity or what ?!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ms2171/144 ... 132372344/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ms2171/144 ... 132372344/
http://www.boston.com/ae/music/blog/200 ... tello.html
Monday, May 15, 2006
Elvis Costello - Another Clip
Why another sample of Elvis Costello's Pops rehearsal? Because we like you. Here's a bit ( via above link) of "All This Useless Beauty."
Monday, May 15, 2006
Elvis Costello - Another Clip
Why another sample of Elvis Costello's Pops rehearsal? Because we like you. Here's a bit ( via above link) of "All This Useless Beauty."