I was thinking the other day about this idea of virtuosity. Someone who is a complete maverick in what they do. When it comes to music so often we obsess over these figures, with super-human abilities who wow us, transport us and at times scare us in their abilities. I think we all have certain musicians and virtuosos that we love and go to first more then others, but I am especially interested in this phenomena of Diva worship so common in the history of gay men. It under pins a lot of queer culture, from the beginnings of Drag performance, definition and distinction of the community in terms like “a friend of Dorothy,” the story of Judy Garlands influence on the Stonewall riots and gay men meeting and sharing an intimate moment at the over.
I started to think about virtuosi, of varying types, that inspire me. Hopefully this blog post doesn’t just read as a boring old list of performers and performances that I adore, but it is certainly a really interesting cross section of virtuosic performances.
Jennifer Holiday was the first name I thought of. Her iconic debut as Effie in Dreamgirls when she was 21 has gone into legend. The role requires a singer who can capture that amazing flashpoint in popular music where gospel singing, soul, RnB and even a bit of jazz intersected together into the pop mainstream of 1960s girl groups. Her singing is hands down incredible. It’s so big, brash and the twists and turns she imbues on the music is almost comical, but she hits it out of the park so well that we don’t care what wild and crazy noise she makes or shape she makes with her mouth. The sound is awesome. And she has performed this song her whole career. It’s basically her song, and she rips it to shreds every time without fail.
Here are three performances from the 80s around the time of her Broadway debut, 1998 and then 2018. Faultless every time. Camp, yes. Technically so proficient - to be able to make some of the sounds she does without destroying your vocal chords IS AMAZING. I’ll stop here, because I could talk about Jennifer Holiday (and also the various wild stories about the premiere of Dreamgirls) for ever.
My next thought was to include an instrumentalist, because my mind went racing with singers when I first thought about virtuosity.
Mitsuko Uchida is a german pianist who is my go to pianist. She performs german classical music with impeccable dedication, technical proficiency, with a wide repertoire (which I think is the virtuosos’ obligation to broaden the repertoire) and a deep commitment, as you see in the below interview about her awe inspiring performance of the Arnold Schoenberg concerto along with a stunning Mozart concerto performance. I adore this last one because she is also directing the orchestra from the keyboard, a skill that blows my mind.
Sometimes you get the right mix of performers performing the right piece which is exemplary and virtuosic. Some examples of ensembles with amazing virtuosic performances are the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra performing Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night from memory, the Arora Chamber Orchestra performing the entire Beethoven Eroica Symphony also from memory WTF and this amazing performance of Pierre Boulez Pli selon pli combined forces of Ensemble Intercontemporain, Paris Conservatoire, Matthias Pintscher and the amazing vocal stylings of Marisol Montalvo.
My ability to memorise music is getting better as I practice it, but the idea of everyone involved playing from memory terrifies the bajeeeeebuz out of me. But, the level of playing, the depth of sound and quality of sound of course escalates the moment you remove the printed instructions, and it results in these two amazing performances.
The performance of the Boulez is special to me because I was there when this video was taken. Seeing the huge orchestra deliver such difficult music with ease, not to mention the spot on singing from Marisol, and of course I must acknowledge Matthias’ perfect conducting. This was the night we met, after the performance, which lead to me working with Matthias at Grafenegg Festival in 2015.
Speaking of Pierre Boulez and conducting, I have to mention his work as a conductor and composer, virtuosic to the max! Here is a video rehearsing his Notation. His mastery of every aspect of the rehearsal, the sound world and potentials and his physical gesture is in my opinion the best you can get with conductors. He can pick a wrong note out of the cacophony of sound going on, explain his exact intentions with precision and be war and inviting at all time.
I can’t talk about virtuosic conductors without mentioning the conductors-conductor, Carlos Kleiber. The stories of his eccentricity have surrvived almost better then his musical achievements. He inhibits all of the above I said about Boulez, but in a far more eccentric and romantic way. He was often very difficult to work with, and perhaps couldn’t work in the modern scene I explore and talk about in this previous blog post. about artistic tyrants.
An equal director of music comparable to the above is James Brown. Michael Tilson Thomas, an American conductor whose work in new music and orchestral music is unsurpassable, interviewed James Brown at the end of his life talking about when he was a student working diligently on these intense and complex 1970s new music scores by Boulez, Stockhausen et al, but listening to James Brown. He says that he launch the tightness, power and precision needed for this music from James Brown and his band. From this interview I delved into Browns music, and I’ve been hooked on the energy and precision ever since.
Apparently he was a complete tyrant, and foul to work with, but he certainly get results!
The flip side of the tyrannical master would be baroque music maser Jordi Savall. A virtuoso of many stringed instruments, his world famous for his performances of some of the most loved music written before 1750. However, his recordings and performances of lesser known work is exemplar in the idea of the leader in their field broadening and enlightening audiences to new music.
Okay, now I’ve gotten the instrumentalists and directors out of the way, I can just talk about singers till I’m blue in the face.
I like opera singers who sing high. I always have. The first time I heard a high voiced soprano warm up when I was in the chorus of an opera when I was 16 blew my mind that someone could make those noises. The higher the better, while making a beautiful sound, please.
Two such diva’s would be Diana Damrau and Kristen Chenoweth.
What I love about looking at these two killer voices is Kristen comes from the American musical theatre world (with a firm classical training) and Diana the central European opera tradition, but bother perform Glitter and be gay from Candide (basically a gay anthem). Its so cool to see what training and background as diverse as these two brings to this piece. I of course had to throw in Diana doing Queen of the Night from Magic Flute, as it’s her performances of the second aria that is the number one YouTube video when you search for opera. However, I include the first aria here, my personal fav.
I am going to finish my love affaire with the female voice with 4 divas. If you know me well, you know that these 4 voices are 4 I listen to pretty much on a daily basis and could talk about till blue in the face.
They also happen to inhabit my 4 fav music genres - new art music, contemporary pop music, 80s pop-soul-RnB and musical theatre.
They all poses a deep dedication to their craft, and almost titanic dedication to the lyric and the song. The virtuosity shows itself in different ways for each: Barbara Hannigan in her colour, range, memory skills as she conducts the band and sings Ligetti from memory (!!!);
Bernadette Peters, an impeccable diva and actress whose emotional connection is so touching that it peppers each word in the lyric perfectly. Also to perform Sondheim, perfectly in a room full of the cream of Hollywood….amazing!;
Lady Gaga who holds a commitment and dedication to her craft and communication of songs as strong and power and the above;
Special shout out to her performing at the Muppets Christmas special a few years ago. The muppets are easily in my top art experiences with the TV shows 30 Rock, X Files and The West Wing, the movies Sunset Boulevard and Network, Brett Dean’s opera’s Bliss and Hamlet, Benjamin Britten’s opera Death in Venice, Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sunday in the Park with George and so many more…..
But of course the real queen of my heart, Whitney Houston.
Who else could perform the notoriously hard USA national anthem with ease and brevity across her whole range. But also get it to become one of the highest selling singles of all time!?
It was of course pre recorded, but apparently she looked at the arrangement for this performance about 15 mins before they recorded it and get it down in one take.
A friend was explaining a tough day at work to me one day, and was complaining about the tone of a colleague at the beginning of the working day, and said “I wasn’t even one Whitney song into the day yet!” Which totally speaks to me! I have to get a few Whitney songs in, just like my morning coffee, just to get started. One such recording a listen to at least weekly, if not daily sometimes is her debut on the Merv Griffen show when she’s around 19 singing Home from The Wiz.
I’ll end my love fest toward female singers here. There are SO MANY more vertuosi I could have mentioned - Itzak Perlman, Daniel Barenboim, Jacqueline du Pre, Patti LaBelle, Sutton Foster, Jonas Kaufmann, Simon Tedeschi, Leonard Bernstein, Simon Rattle, Birgit Neilson, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Peter Allen, Bette Middler, Diana Doherty, Ashley Smith….but I’ll just leave it here! Happy listening.