Window Shopping
Wednesday
A sequined snow leopard in a purple puffer plays the stand-up bass. A lioness, wearing a Cecilie Bahnsen dress, scats into the microphone, as her BF, in a velvet Tom Ford suit, clutches bejeweled drumsticks.
I spotted this scene during a wintry stroll — on Wednesday, Dec. 6 — past Bergdorf-Goodman’s windows. This year’s theme: “Isn’t It Brilliant?”
You may recall that I wrote about Bergdorf’s windows last year, comparing one instrumental display to the Met’s Fanfare.
Noting a recurring theme, I had to reach out to window designer David Hoey:
“Thanks for observing the frequency of music motifs in the BG windows,” he responded. “Hardly anyone has noticed this in my 26 years here.”
It turns out that Hoey studied conducting, composition, and French horn performance at University of North Texas.
“Even my non-musical-looking windows are frequently influenced by the music in my head,” he says, citing Elliott Carter, Messiaen, Ligeti, and Dutilleux as influences.
Inside, a tree made of cellos, guitars, and tambourines — which Hoey has nothing to do with, by the way — looked suspiciously like last year’s, painted gold.
Thursday
The following night — Thursday, Dec. 7 — I saw M Lamar at Hart Bar.
Lamar, who describes himself as an “operatic countertenor,” is a proponent of the “Negrogothic” genre. (His sister, interestingly, is Laverne Cox.)
“Can you make the lights darker? Like turn them off?” he said from the stage, already hazy from the smoke machine.
To a backing track of electric guitar, drums, and synths — like a heavy metal ostinato — he whooped, growled, and shrieked into the microphone.
If there were words, they weren’t in a language I speak.
To machine gun-like reverberations, he flipped his dreadlocks, hunched over, writhing. The audience bobbed along.
That’s when the layers started coming off —jacket, hoodie, and T-shirt, all black of course — leaving Lamar shirtless, a towel over one shoulder.
Friday
On Friday, Dec. 8, I reviewed Death of Classical’s Little Match Girl Passion for Parterre Box.
I was reminded of Bergdorf-Goodman’s again when, in one vignette, the girl imagines a Christmas tree “like those she had seen in the show-windows.”
Saturday
At the end of the busy and eclectic week — on Saturday, Dec. 9 — I saw the “Catalyst Quartet Plays Met Instruments.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s quartet-in-residence showcased a “matched” set — two violins, a viola, and a cello intended to be played together — made by August Martin Gemünder for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition.
Saturday was, supposedly, the first time these quadruplets had performed together.
Far from a gimmick, and more like an experiment, the concert began with Haydn’s “sunrise” quartet. This piece — by the daddy of string quartets himself — is eternally sunny, seldom stormy.
There’s always that initial moment, hearing chamber music in a concert hall, when the sound is quieter than expected. But my ears soon acclimated.
Several times, the Catalyst’s bows-in-the-air caused premature applause. In the “finale,” a scalar figure was passed so seamlessly — from violins to viola to cello — that it sounded like one instrument.
The phrase “like one instrument” surfaced in the mid-concert talk with curator Jayson Kerr Dobney. Because why can’t “one instrument” be played by four people, transcending bodily boundaries?
Another issue discussed: What qualities do you look for in a “first” or “second” violin? Dark or bright? Punchy or clear?
With no set principal — Karla Donehew Perez and Abi Fayette take turns — the question is further complicated.
It was interesting to hear the musicians describe their instruments. Paul Laraia called his a viola “with sizzle.”
Karlos Rodriguez compared the cello to a “warm, green velvet armchair” The original endpin, “like Casals would have played.”
In the second half of the program, a phone alarm woke me up during Gershwin’s “lullaby,” just in time for its cutesy ending. Florence Price’s variations on “Clementine” were full of contrapuntal tension.
In playing “Mishima/Closing” by Philip Glass — a composer well-known for “homogeny” — the quartet was a well-oiled machine. So blended, in fact, I could barely hear the first violin, played by Fayette.
But with Jesse Montgomery’s “Strum,” the playing no longer felt precious. Full of pizzicato bite, strings snapping, bow hairs breaking. In short, with abandon.
I almost forgot the Catalyst were playing museum pieces.