RTS Why Shostakovich now? y STEVE BURTON Last Saturday night a packed Rackham Auditorium was the scene for one of the most deeply felt and richly deserved standing ovations in years. The Borodin String Quartet, their music-stands illuminated only by candlelight, had just completed an emotionally compelling and techni- 'ally masterful performance of ostakovich's remarkable 15th String Quartet, and with ittheirheroic traversal of the complete cycle of all the Shostakovich quartets, given over the course of five consecutive nights, divided between Rackham Audito- rium and the University Art Gallery. This series of concerts crowned a week-long conference reassessing Shostakovich's life and works as the @)th anniversary of his death ap- proaches. The Borodin Quartet worked closely with Shostakovich from their founding in 1945 until his death in 1975. Perhaps no other performing artists in the world today provide so direct and vital a link to the origins of so significant a body of creative work. For comparisons to their uniquely jmithoritative interpretations one must 'sort to the past: Peter Pears singing Britten, Stravinsky conducting Stravinsky, Walter and Klemperer conducting Mahler. But all these be- long to history, accessible only via recordings; the Borodin's Shostako-, vich remains a living tradition. Twenty years ago such compari- sons might have seemed unthinkable. 4 tthe time of his death, Shostakovich as widely viewed in the West as something of an embarassment -- a promising enfant terrible turned re- actionary party-line hack, churning out noisy symphonic odes to Stalin and less noisy but no less empty So- viet wall-paper style chamber music. Few at that time would have seen him as the potential subject for a major international conference bringing to- gether scholars from different coun- tries and disciplines. So what's new? Everything began to change with At the time of his death, Shostakovich was widely viewed in the West as something of an embarassment - a promising enfant terrible turned reactionary party-line hack, churning out noisy symphonic odes to Stalin and less noisy but no less empty Soviet wall-paper style chamber music. the posthumous publication of "Tes- timony," purporting to be the composer's memoirs as "edited" by Solomon Volkov. These revealed a new Shostakovich who hated the So- viet regime and encoded anti-Soviet messages into nearly all his major works. Though "Testimony" is now widely regarded as a book about Shostakovich rather than by him, its portrayal of the composer's political views and musical intentions was largely confirmed by a series of more reliable emigre sources, including Mstislav Rostropovich, Galina Vishnevskaya and the composer's son Maxim. Suddenly music that had sounded like so much Soviet poster art began to reveal unexpected depths of irony and hidden meaning. Suddenly a com- poser who had been dismissed as a pathetic sell-out began to seem like a uniquely central cultural figure of modern times. If that sounds like an overstate- ment, consider it in this light: quite arguably the biggest socio-political and cultural story of the 20th Century was the worldwide experiment with Marxism-Leninism. The longestchap- ter in that big story was surely the rise and fall of Soviet communism. And the greatest Soviet artist, as Richard Taruskin observed in his keynote ad- dress to this week's conference, was none other than Shostakovich. Moreover, he was not simply an artist who happened to live in the Soviet Union: the suffering of the individual under totalitarianism was the substance of much of his work, which offered eyewitness testimony when literature and visual art could not. No wonder, then, that Shostako- vich, almost alone among modern composers, exercises a profound fas- cination far beyond the narrow bounds of the musical profession. Add all this up and one gets, to say it again, a uniquely central modern cultural figure. Considering that his string quartets are his most personal and powerful contribution to the mu- sical literature and that the Borodin Quartet are their greatest interpreters, and one can begin to understand what that ovation in Rackham Auditorium Saturday night was all about. No wonder "Prelude to a Kiss" failed. Could you imagine romance between these two people? 'Prelude' to a failure PLAY THAT FOLKY MUSIC By KAREN LEE You meet the perfect woman. She's a Socialist, she knows what spetzels are, and she will indulge you in your darkest, dirtiest fantasy. After a whirlwind courtship, you marry -- it's the stuff from which fairy tales are made. Then, how- ever, you get her to Jamaica. Prelude to a Kiss Maybe it's the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre excitement of the Ja y 28,1994wedding, or per- January 2, haps it's the cli- mate, but you notice she's not the same person. Your perfect wife has started espousing conservative philosophies and she's stopped drinking. All of a sudden she wants children, whereas only a few weeks before she vehemently declared that she will not raise kids in this world. Psychiatrists might attribute this change to a chemical imbalance in the brain. Others may credit it to that time of the month. Playwright Craig Lucas goes the romantic, fantastic route. A strange and sad old man crashes the wedding of Peter and Rita and kisses the bride. With a flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder, their souls switch bodies. Lucas could very well have gone for the slapstick comedy of such spirit-shifting film classics as "Vice Versa" and "Freaky Friday." Instead, he wrote "Prelude to a Kiss" from the point of view of Peter, the bewildered and frightened young husband who realizes that the attractive woman next to him is not the person he married. What resulted was a poignant tale about unconditional love and the value of life. Ann Arbor Civic Theatre really did try to give its Friday night audience just such a show. The text, however, is fragile, and if a director is not careful the production has a tendency to become simply a precious little love story. Unfortunately, Patricia A. Rector wasn't careful enough. Chris Korow, playing the hapless Peter, can't really be faulted. Although he tried too hard at times, he improved as the play progressed, and ultimately gave a sensitive performance as a man who must face the very real possi- bility that his wife may be lost to him. Don Sandberg was at times stiff as the Old Man, but he gave off a certain air of vulnerability and wistfulness which was aided largely by his small physical stature. This served him especially well at Peter and Rita's wedding, where his size gave him the impression of being lost amidst a sea of bodies. Kathryn A.L. Lambert and Robert N. Bernard dithered and blustered nicely as Rita's parents. Rector made a poor choice when she cast Tina Zaremba as Rita. Zaremba did not seem to be too particularly involved in the action, especially in her early courtship scenes with Korow. I wondered where her acceptance of his marriage proposal came from. There had previously been no chemistry between the two actors, and although the lines made it clear that Rita did love Peter, Zaremba's performance told a different story. The production was not helped by the inclusion of an ensemble who did not appear to have a clear idea of what they were doing there, nor was it aided by the clumsy scenic transitions. It was distracting to see stagehands frantically moving scenery onto the stage when the audi- ence was supposed to be listening to Peter. Additionally, any scene that was played stage left was blocked by a park bench that wasplaced in front of it. In fact, Rector did not seem to know how to use the stage. Rarely was the action played in the center, or even downstage. This only cut off the audience from the story. Normally, a scene is played upstage when a director fears that an actor can't carry it. Such directing choices compel me to wonder just how much faith she had in her cast. This could have been a good production; most of the actors were at least competent, and they had a terrific script. But with a miscast female lead and a weak director, there was nothing for "Prelude to a Kiss" to do but fail. PRELUDE TO A KISS is playing at Ann Arbor Civic Theatre ( 2275 Platt Road) through February 12 at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Tickets are $8 (2-for-1 Thursdays). Call 971-AA CT. Bela Fleck plays to the crowd at Hill Auditorium in Saturday's 17th Annual Ann Arbor Folk Festival. Toreadors of Love Sub Pop Bubblegum grunge, it is being called: music, played by the likes of West Kissers in the World and Hazel, which is a bit too harsh to be labelled pop but likewise not rough enough to fall into the grunge category. Hazel's debut, "Toreadors of Love," reaches for that happy medium between grunge and pop and falls short. In- stead of intelligently mixing the two genres, the band merely strips grunge of its potential energy while neglect- ng to add any catchy riffs or memo- able choruses. Peter Krebs' singing is far from special and the occasional vocal contribution from drummer Jody Bleyle, while adding much to the song, only underscores the weak- ness of the remainder of the album. Song titles like "Big Fatty" and "Joe Louis Punch Out" and "Constipation" point to adesire on Hazel's part to use a sense of humor to push its songs *cross, but the songs themselves are even less humorous and original that the titles and subject matter. One or two tunes, such as "Everyone's Best Friend" linger longer in the head than three minutes and show promise; by and large, though, "Toreadors of Love" is a thoroughly forgettable re- lease. - Dirk Schulze Swivelneck Contactor Headhunter Records Most cities have pretty good local bands. In all likelihood, Swivelneck was probably such a band. Like many high-pitched guitar bands, they have a certain charm that all too often goes hand in hand with having little inno- vation in their sound. Not that that's any different from the sounds of doz- ens of other bands which will un- doubtedly surpass the fame of Swivelneck. Oh, well, too bad for them, or good for them if you see fame as undermining the pure artist. But the lack of innovation is fine sounding. Sometimes it sounds as if it is harpsichord music played through a radiator, bringing almost "Eraserhead" strains to the album. The instrumentals which pepper the album also sound fairly good. The vocals, however, are not stable in their quality. They go from being horribly strained to beautifully crazy. It is rare that you can understand what exactly is being sung, although ever since "Smells Like Teen Spirit" this can hardly be seen as criticism. Over- all, though, the music sounds like broken punk. Or perhaps fixed-up punk. It's sorta crazy sounding, but in a way that isn't all that new. -Ted Watts Eightball and MJG Comin' Out Hard Suave Records Eightball and MJG are two brothas from the hood who are out to tell it like it is. However, most of their lyr- ics take on the atmosphere of "We're the macs. We're the shit. Now go out and by our CD." Although 90 percent of the CD is used as a platform for the duo to proclaim their greatness (as titles like "Pimps," "Nigga's Like Us" and "Pimps in the House" invariably show), overall the CD deserves its place in the rap collage. Where that place should be is highly debatable. The one real problem with this CD is basically that once you've heard one beat, you've heard them all. It seems that every other cut has the same background beat. Listening to this CD can be somewhat frustrating; it feels like listening to one long song rather than a wide and varied collec- tion of music. These guys should have put a little more work into musical side of their art. (Let's be honest. When listening to gangsta rap, many people can't understand the lyrics. They just follow the beat. If the beat doesn't flow then usually nothing else matters.) In Eightball's and MJG's case, the beats, what few different ones they have, do flow, but there is practically no variety. Nevertheless, the rapping is solid. These boyz do have rhymes. If you have a little mad money and nothing else to spend it on, then buy. But, it's nothing to kill for. - Eugene Bowen See RECORDS, Page 8 I ALL MAJORS (CHECK OUT THIS AD!!) "It's been a good experience as far as learning how to deal with people. It makes you become more organized & you're able to see the business world at a college level,"- Michelle Davis, Account Executive & French major The Eighteenth Annual Hayward Keniston Lecture "Ressentiment and Literature" by FREDRIC R. JAMESON Willinm A _ ane Prnfesnr i De nul Ai'AIUTr EVEPIITIIIE I I