The program of Strauss, Ligeti, Strauss was almost your classic shit sandwich. (My apologies for the language \u00e2\u20ac\u201c s.s. from now on.) For those unfamiliar with the lingo, s.s. refers to a distasteful modern piece served up between two more palatable audience favorites. The classic construction is an overture or concerto, followed by the modern piece, ending with a beloved symphony or tone poem. The s.s. may also come open-faced, where the modern piece is first, or upside down where it is last. But the savvy reactionary audience member easily foils these schemes by arriving late or leaving early.<\/p>\n
My definition of the terminology shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be taken as acceptance of the underlying narrow-mindedness. There is a tiny minority of us in the orchestra \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I can think of two others who would dare express their views openly \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who like 20th (and even 21st) century music and think we ought to play more of it. At some point, the audience has to be led kicking and screaming out of the 19th century, hopefully some time before the 21st century ends. After this week I wonder if 93 years might not be long enough for the task.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Chicago Symphony bassist Michael Hovnanian writes a delightful blog, and here is one bit of terminology that I’ve not heard used before. He refers to the classic orchestral programming scheme known as the “shit sandwich”. I’ll let him explain in this excerpt from his blog:<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[55,62,3656,3660],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-orchestra","tag-symphony","tag-the-orchestra-world","tag-viola"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-50","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7052,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/05\/another-great-concert\/","url_meta":{"origin":310,"position":0},"title":"another great concert","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday and Monday nights will see another great set of concerts in this already stellar season. The big surprise for this week? The Britten Piano Concerto. Never heard of it? Well, neither had I, before this season's repertoire was announced. We had our rehearsals with pianist Stephen Osborne over the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/britten_benjamin_s.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8175,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/01\/23\/recordings-for-this-weeks-concert\/","url_meta":{"origin":310,"position":1},"title":"recordings for this week’s concert","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"While I'm not a reviewer of recordings, I do have some recordings that I do especially like. This week's program of works by Mozart and Richard Strauss is one of my favorite of this season, and so I want to share some of my favorite recordings of the week's program\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "recordings"","block_context":{"text":"recordings","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/recordings-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"strauss-lott","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/strauss-lott.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":323,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/05\/13\/this-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":310,"position":2},"title":"this week","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I've noticed that some other orchestral bloggers give their schedule, and I think it helps give the layperson an idea of what we do during the week, so I'll do the same for this last classical subscription week of the year (with gigs included): PROGRAM: Schubert Symphony No. 8 \"Unfinished\"\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":324,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/05\/14\/orchestral-hierarchy\/","url_meta":{"origin":310,"position":3},"title":"orchestral hierarchy","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I've was struck today, as we were rehearsing Richard Strauss' mighty tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), at the different breeds of players that there are in the modern symphony orchestra. I was listening to our guest concertmaster for the week, Elisa Barston, as she played the extended, fiendishly\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":447,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/09\/27\/rocky-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":310,"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":34,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/04\/03\/busy\/","url_meta":{"origin":310,"position":5},"title":"busy!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been a busy 10 days - and here's the list of music that's passed over my transom to prove it: Prokofiev - Romeo & Juliet, Suites 1 and 2 Berlioz - Queen Mab Scherzo from Romeo & Juliet Bernstein - Symphonic Dances from West Side Story Strauss - Don\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","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=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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