The Art Institute of Chicago is a remarkable place.  Not only is the collection superb, but it's laid out and presented impressively and involvingly.

A couple of months back, they got their first-ever Norman Rockwell painting.  (Why it took this long, I don't know, but that's been rectified.)  And all the better, it's not only highly appropriate for Chicago, but on near and dear to my heart.  It's Rockwell's work, "The Dugout," one of the most famous baseball painting.

Rockwell painted it in 1948, after the Chicago Cubs lost a double-header on the road against the Boston Braves.  Games that Rockwell was at.  I even have a small copy up in my home.

Well...I spent the day at the Art Institute yesterday and, of course, went to see it, right away.  (The elves taking care of my place are jealous.  Understandably.)  I rarely take pictures of myself, but it will not shock you to learn that I couldn't let this pass by. This was the Real Thing, after all.

​I asked one of the guards if he'd help out.

I believe the correct response is...Huzzah!!

​Either that, or Let's Play Two!

By the way, that's a fun story related to one of the Cubs in the dugout, the fellow second from the left in the painting.  That's the manager Charlie Grimm, who has his arms crossed.  (All four men in the dugout were real Cubs, who Rockwell got to pose after the game.  The young batboy was not part of the Cubs, but was actually the batboy for the Braves, and he agreed to wear a Cubs uniform for the posing.  And yes, he did get paid a bit for it.  I assume they all did.)

Charlie Grimm (whose nickname was "Jolly Cholly") managed the Cubs on and off, and then retired.  But he was brought out of retirement to manage the team in 1960.  But the Cubs got off to a terrible start – and so the team owner P.K. Wrigley did something I’m not aware of ever being done in baseball – or any major sport franchise.  Before or since.  At the time (and this is important to the story), the Cubs radio announcers were a guy named Jack Quinlan -- and Lou Boudreau who was the analyst.  Boudreau had been a truly great shortstop during his career – in fact, so great that he’s in the National Baseball Hall-of-Fame.  He played for the Cleveland Indians when another Chicago legend, Bill Veeck, owned them – before Veeck bought the White Sox – and he made Boudreau the Indians' player-manager.  Anyway, back to 1960, what P.K Wrigley did was bizarre, and something only the Cubs of that era would do:  he swapped manager Charlie Grimm with the team’s radio announcer, Lou Boudreau!!!  For the rest of the season, Charlie Grimm did the analysis on WGN-AM radio, and Lou Boudreau was the manager!!

Yes, really.  I was a little kid at the time, and the one thing I remember of the switch (the only thing I remember…) is that Charlie Grimm had a catch-phrase in the booth.  When the count on a batter was 3-and-2, he’d said, “Something has got to happen…”  My dad thought that was a hoot.  Anyway, at the end of the year, Grimm again retired, and Lou Boudreau went back to announcing, where he continued for another 20 years or so.  Occasionally helping out on the TV broadcasts.
 
And now you know.

To help celebrate the day, we'll start the year as is our tradition -- with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti (in a Cubs jersey) playing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”  I think it was done in honor of the Cubs 2016 World Series, their first in 108 years, since the video was posted on November 6, 2016.  And the musicians are in street clothes, but many are wearing Cubs paraphernalia or blue.
 
It's a wonderful and fun arrangement, too, not trying to overwhelm such a small, charming song with orchestral bombast, but arranged with an almost old-timey feel.  And Muti seems to be having a good time with it all.

This was posted on Twitter.  However, I followed a link, and it turns out this fellow does this sort of thing a lot, and has a TikTok page with dozens of them.  (You don’t have to subscribe – I don’t.)

The type of artwork he does is called panshi. From what I was able to find, it's a painting style that uses a wide range of colors to depict humans, animals, and natural scenes, and has it roots in Buddhism, originating around the 11th century.

At the very least, stick with it for just a bit until you see where it’s going.

It’s…spectacular.  And I feel comfortable saying that without even the slightest fear of it being hyperbole.

In the article I posted last week with the full-episode video here of The Harry Secombe Show -- on which he sang a duet from La Boheme with an opera singer -- I mentioned that it wasn’t all that much of a stretch for him, since he had starred in a 1957 British movie, Davy, about the member of a low-level vaudeville, family comedy team who wants to go out on his own and be an opera singer. 
 
(No, it’s not semi-autobiographical, although Secombe did get his start in vaudeville/burlesque music hall.  In fact, if you ever saw the movie, Mrs. Henderson Presents with Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins – a fairly enjoyable film, for which she got an Oscar nomination – it’s loosely based on a true story where a woman buys on old theater house and puts on variety shows that include an all-nude women’s revue.  And that theater, the Windmill, is one of the places where Harry Secombe began his career.  In fact, he wrote what was a semi-autobiographical story, the comic novel, Twice Brightly,  about that part of his very early career.)

​I've periodically mentioned my Internet friend Peter Breiner.  He's quite an accomplished fellow -- composer, arranger and conductor.  And not only has he made over 290 recordings (I don't even own 290 CDs...), but he wrote a weekly newspaper column, is a book author, had a radio program, and hosted a talk show on Slovenska Televizia (with the great title, Do You Have Something Against That?) that had the honor of being briefly banned for being too controversial. 

(Apparently all was forgiven, because in 2018 Slovak President Andrej Kiska presented Breiner with the Order of Ludovít Štúr, the third highest Slovak state decoration.  Of course, in the interim, he lived in Toronto and then New York City for almost 30 years, and now resides in London.)

​
Every year for my Holiday Fest, as readers here likely recall, I post several selections from two of his CDs, Christmas Goes Baroque I and II, which are among my favorite -- taking has traditional, popular Christmas songs he's arranged impeccably and conducted in the style of Baroque composers.  (He did the same with another Baroque-style CD, Beatles Go Baroque, which got a sequel, as well.)

But this is about something else entirely,

Not long ago, Breiner was commissioned to write a ballet based on Mikhail Bulgakov's classic novel, The Master and Margarita, and it was scheduled to have its world premiere in 2020 at the Slovak National Theater for their 100th anniversary, but...well, you know there was that whole pandemic thing that got in the way.  At least, hopefully, for the moment.  However, rather than wait around, he arranged the music into a long suite which he titled, The Devil In Moscow.  And not long ago, the piece had its world premiere with the Slovak Philharmonic, and Breiner conducting.  And best of all, the video of the concert is online.

And even better, it's wonderful.

Yes, I'm biased, but two things:

First, I didn't have to post this.  I could have sent Peter a nice note, "Really nice, I enjoyed it," and left it at that.  So, everything I say here I mean wholeheartedly.

And second, he's recorded 291 albums.  Though much is his arrangements and conducting of others' works, a great deal has been his own music.  The short version, he really knows what he's doing.

I should add that when I say the piece was wonderful, it's not necessarily my favorite style of music.  (I like some, but there are other styles I like much more.)  But this was vibrant, rich, melodic, edgy and has great scope.  I will acknowledge that I what liked most was how the music built in the second half of the piece, starting with the selection “Niesla žlté kvety” through to the end.  I don’t know my reaction is because of the music, or because I just liked how it built, or if my ear got more accustomed to it all.  To be clear – I liked it all.  I’m just saying this is what I liked most.  I thought that “Niesla žlté kvety” stood out as gorgeous – but also, in a completely different style, my second favorite section was the final  “Velký ples pri splne mesiaca“.

I also thought that it was terrifically orchestrated – my favorite part (oddly, for its simplicity) was the chimes in the finale, for being very emotional and moving, helped by having read the novel.  But perhaps it’s the simplicity that stood out, but also its moodiness.  And the orchestra was excellent.  I’m glad for the thunderous applause at the end.  Actually, I was surprised that the very initial reaction was muted for a few seconds – and then when Breiner turned around, the cheers rose.  And it grew even more when he returned to the stage. 

I know only part of the effort he went through to get to this point, and (and this is totally subjective and personal) I’m so glad he got there – because this now finally has entered into the world.  Here’s hoping the ballet does get staged at some point, but regardless, how absolutely great that the work now has been heard and stands on its own as such a moving piece of music. 

I wrote most of this to Peter, and he said I could post his reply.  He wrote -- 

Thanks very much for your kind words. I am very glad you liked it. This suite was crafted from the first half of the ballet, the original piece is about 2 hours long. The piece was very well received by the audience on both nights. However, since the current government of Slovakia is totally pro- Russian, the press was too scared to write reviews of something with this title, despite the fact, that it's based on a 100 years old extremely popular Russian novel.

With all that out of the way, here then (at last...) is Peter Breiner’s 40-minute suite from his ballet Devil in Moscow, based on the novel The Master and Margarita,” by Mikhail Bulgakov.  For those who do listen, it may help to know the story that the music is telling.  On its most simplistic level, a stranger comes to Moscow and offers people great gifts that almost magically come true.  And then they turn inside out, and the people who took the gifts have their lives become hell.  The stranger is basically the Devil.  And the Devil is communism.  There’s a lot more going on, but that’s the core.

I can't embed the video here since it's not posted on YouTube, however you'll be able to find it at this link here.
 
If you decide to listen to the whole thing, just know that the novel is moody, dark, sardonically comic, mystical, eerie and edgy.  So, the music tells that story.  It’s modern and often atonal.  Though not all of it is.
 
And for those who just want to listen to my favorite segments (or to start with them), those would be -- “She carried yellow flowers" and the finale “The great full moon ball”.  They’re very different from each other.
 
For a bit of assistance maneuvering around the site:

This video is the full concert, which opened with three other classical selections by Walton, Haydn and Bach.  Some may enjoy the whole evening, but if you want to get to Breiner's The Devil in Moscow, you’ll see on the right side of the screen the program for the evening.  Scroll down to where it say’s “Peter Breiner.”   This is what it looks like --
​

Then, just click on  these two segments noted above.  The video will jump right to them.  You may have to click Play.
 
“She carried yellow flowers" is about five minutes, and the finale “The great full moon ball”​ is a bit over six minutes.

Or just click on the title of the piece under his name, to hear the full suite.
 
That’s Peter Breiner conducting.  He also orchestrated the piece.  And the other folks on stage are, of course, the Slovak Philharmonic.