The Michigan Daily
ARTS
Wednesday, December 12, 1984
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Page 6
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Vienna
Choir Boys:
Young at
heart, but
not in talent
By Neil Gallanter
The Vienna Boys performed Sunday after-
noon at Hill Auditorium and it was
something else. It's absolutely amazing when
you see a group of young children walk on stage
in a nice orderly fashion all dressed in quasi
"sailor suits", and then begin to sing an adult
program of choral repetoire which includes all
possible types of music from Palestrina to
Christmas Carols.
Beginning with selections by Eybler and
Palestrina the boys demonstrated a very silken
vocal timbre with plenty of sweet suppleness.
The two major items on the first half of the
program were a set of selections from Ben-
jamin Britten's Christmas Favorite "A
Ceremony of Carols" and a mini operetta
"Monsieur et Madame Denis" by Offenbach.
These two selections resulted in what was some
of the most enjoyable music throughout the
program. The Britten was full of spirit and ef-
fervescence in the lively sections and in the
pieces which were slower, the boys performed
the difficult high pitched melodic lined
material with a fairly decent amount of con-
trol.
This control in turn led to singing which did
not sound the least bit scratchy or grating to
ones ears. The problem is sometimes evident
and typical of boys choirs when the music lies
in a very high vocal tessitura, however the
boys' musical development and training have
prevented them from falling into that trap.
After a short pause, the stage was
rearranged and set up for the mini operetta by
Offenbach. This was quite an amusing produc-
tion to say the least.
The first thing we were treated to was one of
the choir boys waltzing onto the stage,
costumed as a lady maid in a dress, happily
dusting away with a duster. It was quite a sight
to see and the rest of the operetta proved the
same, as the boys sang musical numbers, and
acted out their lines, which included a pot-
pourri of English slang lines in their German
accents.
Although this small staged production was
not on the same par as a Shakespeare produc-
tion at Stratford, it was still terribly enjoyable
and entertaining to see these young children
staging their own production and singing the
various vocal numbers.
They of course could not have done any of
this without the fine training and assistance
from their extremely competent leader and
conductor: Peter Marschik. Maestro Marschik
conducted and played the piano, accompanying
the boys throughout the whole program when
accompaniments were necessary.
His playing more than took care of this
necessity, however, as it was fine musicianship
as well, although he could have played a bit sof-
ter at times because he overpowered the boys
at certain points in the music. Small boys'
voices are not overly powerful, and that is why
the piano could and did easily overpower them.
The last half of the program was devoted to
folksongs and Christmas Carols, which were
especially pleasant and peacefully relaxing.
"0 Come all Ye Faithful," sung in German was
gorgeous, every note meltingly beautiful and
thus setting the stage for a very merry and
joyous holiday season. They also performed
folksongs by Schubert and Schumann a
capella, (without piano) which also were effec-
tive, integrating their harmonies well and
producing musically satisfying results.
As for folksongs, they graced us with "O! My
Darling Clementine" and the very popular "On
the Beautiful Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss,
one of the choir boys also performed a sweet
and docile piece entitled, "Pueri Concinite" by
J.V. Herbeck.
To me, it seemed as if the Vienne Choir Boys
were much more effective when singing a
capella rather than with piano accompaniment
because they didn't have to struggle as much to
bring their parts out. With the piano, on the
other hand, they needed to work a little bit har-
der to put themselves in complete "gover-
nment".
The concert, of course, could not have been
complete without "Silent Night", which they
also sang in German as "Stille Nacht". "Stille
Nacht" was inspirational, as they performed
each verse delicately and deliberately with ex-
troverted expression.
"Silent Night" put the finality on things and
it rounded the concert out to being an enjoyably
spent Sunday afternoon. The Vienna Choir
Boys is a group of very talented youngsters.
Many of them certainly will continue to develop
and grow into even greater musicians in their
later lives.
Records-..
o M-0 Oft ofto M-0
lam Siam-Talk to Me
(Columbia 12" single)
lam Siam is pegged as one of the
year's most "controversial" new ban-
ds-i.e. they may prove one of the
silliest and/or most pretentious. Ap-
parently they base their image and
music on both the "teachings of I-
Ching" and the "myth of Lamoria," a
lost civilization akin to Atlantia, whose
inhabitants were renowned for their
spirituality and mysical powers."
Sounds pretty foolish to me, though
maybe the upcoming album will flesh
out the concept a bit more fully than
TONIGHT
NN FICTION
at
The Blind Pig
$1.00 off cover
with this ad.
this initial single release or its accom-
panying video. The video is visually in-
triguing, and was shot in the jungles of
Brazil by Ray Guerra; who directed the
feature Erendira; but behind its offbeat
visual surface movie look lurks a 'plot'
that's pure Hollywood-costume-pic
hokum (hero rescues the girl from
tribal 'marriage sacrifice ritual') and a
marketing strategy that's no more than
a dead-serious version of Bow Wow
Wow and Duran Duran's "Hungry Like
the Wolf" pseudo-primitive ex-
ploitation.
Offering no less than four versions of
the single-a "dance mix," a "dub," a
"single" and an "album version," none
of them awfully different from one
another-this 12-incher offers about as
much of one thing as anyone could
stand. The song itself, "Talk to Me ( I
Can Hear You Now)," is an acceptable
beat-heavy dance number with
xylephonish frills, lyrics of a vaguely
mystical bent, and rather undistinctive
male vocals-a more unique vocalist
might lend Iam Siam some of the
spaced-out credibility that their heavily
conceptual nature needs. Fine for a
spin on the dancefloor, but hardly of
staggering promise.
-Dennis Harvey
Flipper - Gone Fishin'
(Subterranean)
Flipper's long (well, by some)
awaited second LP is initially disap-
pointing, despite superlative
cover/sleeve artwork - a cutout
diarama for constructing Flipper's van
and members at one-tenth life-size
scale. But the album mellows with a bit
of turntable aging. The kings of San
Francisco hardcore art-noise have had
lots of time on their hands but have
storedupsurprisingly little intensity
since their belated '82 debut Generic
Flipper. On this record they ably trip
over various musical forms like a
trash-fast-hard-rock sibling of the
Residents, equally parodistic in lyrical
content and nearly as farout instrumen-
tally - if only that crunchy guitar could
be exchanged for electronicsuf-
focation, the comparison would be
complete. But then that wouldn't be
Flipper, and Flipper, a modern-day
essential, is already a slightly outdated
one. There's certainly nothing here to
equal the classic art-farce-horror effec-
ts of "Sex Bomb" or "Brainwash," but
there are pllenty of sublime moments
-"Survivors of the Plague," "Sacri-
fice" and "In Life *My Friends" are
especially entertaining. Flipper has got
the modern-day dirge scene cornered.
They have definitely unadorned
statements of social observation
(Everybody's life is so dull/They
spend their time living someone
elses') plus a big-noise musical inten-
sity that is rare and deservedly en-
dangered. Not quite hardcore, this is
still definitely hard something. Flip-
per can function as a convenient tran-
sition from hardcore and early punk to
just about everything since - art
music, punk-funk, post-Iggyisms,
garage revival, plsychedelia, et al.
Vague blood inheritors of the
Strawberry Alarm Clock, Flipper
works from the spacier outward fringe
to make all underground music a bit
more accessible. Gone Fishin' may, as
the title indicates, have a bit of a
lackadaisical quality to it, but Flipper
is still too complicatedly good a concept
to be boring. -Dennis Harvey
Hajime Tachibani - Hm
(Ralph Records)
Former lead songwriter for the short-
but-sweet-lived Japanese B-52's
imitation The Plastics, Tachibani has a
terrific array of Japanese new music
talent at his disposal for this instrumen-
tal effort-Isao Tomita (lately of the
highly amusing Space Walk on RCA),
and Yukihiro Takahashi (of Japan and
assorted perfectly cool session sit-ins).
The record is entirely nonvocal, but
highly entertaining, but extreme Philip
Glass pillaging ("Piano Pillow Going
Abstract") and equally extreme wood-
winds-only sad mortuary jazz ("This
Is. . . !!!Death Video"), melding well
with viciously precise camp cruelty
("Theme From 'Sexy Symbol Strikes
Back'"). There's a lot of entirely non-
derivative pleasure here as well,
-Dennis Harvey
A defense against cancer
can be cooked up in your kitchen.
Everyone knew what Jeffrey
should do with his life.
Everyone was wrong.
There is evidence that diet
and cancer are related. Some
foods may promote cancer, while
others may protect you from it.
Foods related to lower-
ing the risk of cancer of the
larynx and esophagus all have \
high amounts of carotene, r
a form of Vitamin A which
is in cantaloupes, peaches,
broccoli, spinach, all dark
green leafy vegetables, sweet
potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, .
winter squash and tomatoes,.
citrus fruits and brussels
sprouts.
Fruits, vegetables, and whole-
grain cereals such as oatmeal, bran
and wheat may help lower the risk
of colorectal cancer.
Foods high in fats, salt- or
nitrite-cured foods like ham, and
fish and
types of sausages smoked by tradi-
tional methods should be
eaten in moderation.
Be moderate in
consumption of alco-
hol also.
A good rule of
thumb is cut down on
fat and don't be fat.
Weight reduction may
lower cancer risk. Our
12- year study of nearly a
million Americans uncovered
high cancer risks particularly
among people 40% or more
overweight.
Now, more than ever, we
know you can cook up your own
defense against cancer.
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A legend in his own neighborhood.
Foods that may
help reduce the risk
of gastrointestinal
and respiratory
tract cancer are
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