Fairy Tales in Three Dimensions

Walden Chamber Players
PO Box 382,
Arlington, MA 02476
866-393-2WCP(2927)

Fairy Tales in Three Dimensions

By Andrew L. Pincus,
Special to The Eagle Berkshire Eagle

Friday, December 16

Music tells fairy tales, too.

Three examples will be on the program when the Walden Chamber Players take the stage Sunday afternoon at the Berkshire Museum as part of the museum's Faerie Tale Festival of Trees. To illustrate the theme, the program will also include readings of tales by the brothers Grimm and slide projections of paintings.

"Nothing exists in a vacuum," says Walden director Christof Huebner to explain the venture into connecting music, literature and images. The program, he says, is a nice example of the Boston-based ensemble's motto: "Music is the human experience translated into sound."

Fairy tales go back to pre-Christian times and involve Irish leprechauns and Norwegian trolls among countless other spirits. The museum's 200 holiday trees recall such tales as Snow White, Jack and his beanstalk, and the emperor's new clothes.

In a telephone interview, Huebner said multimedia programs like Walden's expand on a theme by giving audiences a chance to see connections among the arts.

Combining the forms "gives a very nice idea of how the arts are woven into our lives in so many different aspects and areas," he said. "You know, so often we have this idea of the arts as being on the margins of society, of our lives. Our model, Walden's model, really is that the arts are very much who we are. They are essential to our existence."

Huebner grew up in Vienna. He said that in Europe, the situation is different: "The arts are really central. They are a really important, vital part of everyday life."

Four Walden plays will take part in the 4 p.m. program of selections by Schumann, Vincent Persichetti, Ravel and Brahms. In addition to Huebner, who is the group's violist, the performers will be clarinetist Michael Sussman, cellist Rafel Popper-Keizer and pianist Jonathan Bass.

Orit Ditman, a Boston actress, will narrate the Grimm stories "The Sweet Soup" and "A Puzzling Tale." Paintings by Monet, Childe Hassam, Caspar David Friedrich and Arnold Boecklin will depict matching scenes.

Two of the musical selections, Ravel's "Ondine" and Persichetti's "Infanta Marina," tell stories of women who rise magically out of the water.

Ravel's "Ondine" is the first of three pieces for solo piano in his suite "Gaspard de la nuit." It tells the tale of Ondine (usually known as Undine), a water sprite who falls in love with a human, only to have him fall in love with a woman.

Ravel based his setting on a prose-poem by the French symbolist Aloysius Bertrand. Bertrand's major work, according to the Walden program notes, was " 'Gaspard of the Night,' a book-length series of scenes of medieval to 17th-century Flemish and French life, subtitled 'Fantasies in the manner of Rembrandt and (Jacques) Callot.'"

The piece by Persichetti, an American, is for viola and piano. It, too, is based on a literary source, a Wallace Stevens poem titled "Infanta Marina." The dreamlike text depicts a young woman emerging from the sea into a world where "Her terrace was the sand / And the palms and the twilight."

In life, an infanta was the daughter of a Spanish or Portuguese monarch. Huebner said that even before he knew the Stevens poem, he had played the Persichetti piece and found the heroine a "magical, mysterious figure."

The program opens with Schumann's "Fairy Tales" for clarinet, viola and piano, which, despite the title, tells no specific story. The three movements reflect Schumann's interest in fantasy, a common preoccupation in the romantic era.

Brahms' Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, the finale, is music without even a suggestion of a story. To Huebner, it fits on the program because Brahms also drew on romantic traditions, "and it's also just a wonderful piece to end a program with."

This won't be the first time the Walden players have taken a multimedia approach in the Berkshires. At the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown two years ago, for instance, they combined readings and paintings with the music of Boccherini to give a picture of 18th-century Spain, where he spent much of his career.

A year ago, the group traveled to the Massachusetts Academy of Mathematics and Science in Worcester for a program based on Shakespeare, whose plays quote songs of his time. Between readings by students from the academy, the players performed music by composers of the period such as Gibbons and Morley.

"It gave a very nice tableau of the flavor of the times and the arts," Huebner said.

The group alternates its thematic programs with others that search out unusual repertoire. A Clark program on May 21, 2006, for example, will offer an eclectic mix of works by Virgil Thomson, Harald Genzmer, Augusta Read Thomas, Sofia Gubaidulina and Erich Zeisl.

Meanwhile, Sunday's business is water maidens and other spirits.

"We try to present programs that draw in more people and appeal to a wider audience this way, by combining the paintings, the literature and the music," Huebner said.

	Walden Chamber Players PO Box 382, Arlington, MA 02476 866-393-2WCP(2927)
	Fairy Tales in Three Dimensions
	By Andrew L. Pincus, Special to The Eagle Berkshire Eagle
	Friday, December 16
	Music tells fairy tales, too.
	Three examples will be on the program when the Walden Chamber Players take the stage Sunday afternoon at the Berkshire Museum as part of the museum's Faerie Tale Festival of Trees. To illustrate the theme, the program will also include readings of tales by the brothers Grimm and slide projections of paintings.
	"Nothing exists in a vacuum," says Walden director Christof Huebner to explain the venture into connecting music, literature and images. The program, he says, is a nice example of the Boston-based ensemble's motto: "Music is the human experience translated into sound."
	Fairy tales go back to pre-Christian times and involve Irish leprechauns and Norwegian trolls among countless other spirits. The museum's 200 holiday trees recall such tales as Snow White, Jack and his beanstalk, and the emperor's new clothes.
	In a telephone interview, Huebner said multimedia programs like Walden's expand on a theme by giving audiences a chance to see connections among the arts.
	Combining the forms "gives a very nice idea of how the arts are woven into our lives in so many different aspects and areas," he said. "You know, so often we have this idea of the arts as being on the margins of society, of our lives. Our model, Walden's model, really is that the arts are very much who we are. They are essential to our existence."
	Huebner grew up in Vienna. He said that in Europe, the situation is different: "The arts are really central. They are a really important, vital part of everyday life."
	Four Walden plays will take part in the 4 p.m. program of selections by Schumann, Vincent Persichetti, Ravel and Brahms. In addition to Huebner, who is the group's violist, the performers will be clarinetist Michael Sussman, cellist Rafel Popper-Keizer and pianist Jonathan Bass.
	Orit Ditman, a Boston actress, will narrate the Grimm stories "The Sweet Soup" and "A Puzzling Tale." Paintings by Monet, Childe Hassam, Caspar David Friedrich and Arnold Boecklin will depict matching scenes.
	Two of the musical selections, Ravel's "Ondine" and Persichetti's "Infanta Marina," tell stories of women who rise magically out of the water.
	Ravel's "Ondine" is the first of three pieces for solo piano in his suite "Gaspard de la nuit." It tells the tale of Ondine (usually known as Undine), a water sprite who falls in love with a human, only to have him fall in love with a woman.
	Ravel based his setting on a prose-poem by the French symbolist Aloysius Bertrand. Bertrand's major work, according to the Walden program notes, was " 'Gaspard of the Night,' a book-length series of scenes of medieval to 17th-century Flemish and French life, subtitled 'Fantasies in the manner of Rembrandt and (Jacques) Callot.'"
	The piece by Persichetti, an American, is for viola and piano. It, too, is based on a literary source, a Wallace Stevens poem titled "Infanta Marina." The dreamlike text depicts a young woman emerging from the sea into a world where "Her terrace was the sand / And the palms and the twilight."
	In life, an infanta was the daughter of a Spanish or Portuguese monarch. Huebner said that even before he knew the Stevens poem, he had played the Persichetti piece and found the heroine a "magical, mysterious figure."
	The program opens with Schumann's "Fairy Tales" for clarinet, viola and piano, which, despite the title, tells no specific story. The three movements reflect Schumann's interest in fantasy, a common preoccupation in the romantic era.
	Brahms' Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, the finale, is music without even a suggestion of a story. To Huebner, it fits on the program because Brahms also drew on romantic traditions, "and it's also just a wonderful piece to end a program with."
	This won't be the first time the Walden players have taken a multimedia approach in the Berkshires. At the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown two years ago, for instance, they combined readings and paintings with the music of Boccherini to give a picture of 18th-century Spain, where he spent much of his career.
	A year ago, the group traveled to the Massachusetts Academy of Mathematics and Science in Worcester for a program based on Shakespeare, whose plays quote songs of his time. Between readings by students from the academy, the players performed music by composers of the period such as Gibbons and Morley.
	"It gave a very nice tableau of the flavor of the times and the arts," Huebner said.
	The group alternates its thematic programs with others that search out unusual repertoire. A Clark program on May 21, 2006, for example, will offer an eclectic mix of works by Virgil Thomson, Harald Genzmer, Augusta Read Thomas, Sofia Gubaidulina and Erich Zeisl.
	Meanwhile, Sunday's business is water maidens and other spirits.
	"We try to present programs that draw in more people and appeal to a wider audience this way, by combining the paintings, the literature and the music," Huebner said.