{"id":244,"date":"2007-03-15T00:51:43","date_gmt":"2007-03-15T08:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/15\/health-and-wellness\/"},"modified":"2013-02-07T18:03:27","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T02:03:27","slug":"health-and-wellness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/15\/health-and-wellness\/","title":{"rendered":"health and wellness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night the Arnica Quartet performed as part of the new (and hopefully annual) MarchMusic<\/a> series held at the new OHSU medical office building (now informally known as the “Tram building”). It was an encouraging experiment. The lobby of this new LEED<\/a> platinum-certified structure has surprisingly wonderful acoustics – we could hear each other very well, hear ourselves very well, and the three story atrium contributes a nice reverberation bloom to the sound. I would have liked to have talked a bit more, and I know that the audience was expecting more of that, but there wasn’t a graceful way to get to the microphone after the intermission, before we began the Debussy.<\/p>\n

Overall, I think the concert went well. There were the usual glitches that always happen in a first public performance of a piece together, but there were a lot of nice moments as well. I’m finding that each time I approach a new Beethoven quartet, that there is yet more to marvel at. The care of construction, the sureness of his orchestration, and an innate sense of drama derived from the form – it’s all right there, as good as you could want, and all within the constraints of the typical Classical forms. All this in Op. 18 – before Beethoven reached his 30th birthday.<\/p>\n

The Debussy is a continuing revelation.\u00c2\u00a0 Having done the Ravel and Debussy with the Ethos Quartet, I’m firmly convinced that the Debussy is the superior composition. The Ravel owes much to it, and is a beautiful and masterful piece. But the Debussy is so tight in its construction, and one is so unaware of the construction nonetheless, that it is a miracle. The taut, driven energy of the opening of the first movement is contrasted by the languid fluidity of the third movement, while the second movement makes extensive use of pizzicato (plucking of the strings), and the final movement makes the quartet a cyclical event with the high energy return of the opening theme of the piece. The ending is exhilarating, almost orchestral in its scope and sweep. It’s a difficult piece to play well, but always worth the effort.<\/p>\n

It was also nice to meet one of my readers – “Eva” – in the flesh, and to have Elaine Calder (Oregon Symphony consultant) take time out of a busy evening to come hear us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night the Arnica Quartet performed as part of the new (and hopefully annual) MarchMusic series held at the new OHSU medical office building (now informally known as the “Tram building”). It was an encouraging experiment. The lobby of this new LEED platinum-certified structure has surprisingly wonderful acoustics – we could hear each other very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[67,55,3666,62],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-classical","tag-orchestra","tag-oregon","tag-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/01\/03\/acoustics-can-you-hear-me-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":244,"position":0},"title":"Acoustics – can you hear me now?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A good article on acoustics for the audience, and how, even in a great hall, where you sit can make a huge difference in what you hear. For example - in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall here in Portland, you spend the most money for the Dress Circle seats, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1985,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/02\/26\/inside-the-orchestra\/","url_meta":{"origin":244,"position":1},"title":"inside the orchestra","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Violist Sam Bergman has a great illustration of how different it is to hear an orchestra from the audience's point of view than from a seat in the orchestra.\u00c2\u00a0 Sam's a violist with the Minnesota Orchestra, which is on a European tour right now.\u00c2\u00a0 Their first stop was the Barbican\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "acoustics"","block_context":{"text":"acoustics","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/acoustics-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13456,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/06\/28\/this-musicians-holy-trinity\/","url_meta":{"origin":244,"position":2},"title":"this musician’s holy trinity","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The symphony season is over. Astoria Festival (for the big orchestra) is done. Now, it's time for the summer regimen to begin. No matter how great the orchestra, playing in an orchestra over time does some pretty insidious things to one's playing. Since you cannot really hear yourself, it can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "etudes & studies"","block_context":{"text":"etudes & studies","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/etudes-studies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":559,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/02\/is-the-tide-turning\/","url_meta":{"origin":244,"position":3},"title":"is the tide turning?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It was great to meet up with OSO president Elaine Calder as I walked up to the stage door before the concert tonight to hear the words \"the house sold well tonight\". And the snow which we'd been threatened with never materialized (always sure box office death here in snow-phobic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/profit.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":447,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/09\/27\/rocky-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":244,"position":4},"title":"rocky 2","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"pianist Valentina Lisitsa This weekend's first subscription concert at the Oregon Symphony is pretty much a must-see\/hear. There's a terrific piece of Dvorak - his Symphonic Variations - that I'll bet you've never heard live before (and maybe not even on a recording) - but which is both totally charming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"valentia lisitsa","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/lisitsa.thumbnail.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7893,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/09\/30\/minnesota-musicians-counter-offers-rejected\/","url_meta":{"origin":244,"position":5},"title":"minnesota musicians’ counter offers rejected","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Press release from the Minnesota Orchestra musicians: BREAKING NEWS: Management Rejects Two Musician Counter Offers Minneapolis \u2013 The management of the Minnesota Orchestra rejected two counter offers by the Musicians today. Musicians have been making counter offers to avoid being locked out at midnight tonight. Management seems determined to lock\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}