Tonight, at the symphony, the orchestra is performing this program, which starts with one of those pieces of classical music that everyone recognizes even without knowing who wrote it, namely the overture to the opera William Tell by Gioachino Rossini. The reason that everyone knows it is because of its closing section, used as the theme music for The Lone Ranger. The concert got a nice review from the local critic here. Barring accidents, self is there tonight, hopefully as this diary auto-posts, so 3CM will be his usual loserly self in following up late(r) with comments to all 3.6 of you who bother to read this. Or maybe it's a break from the stress, even if I end up giving you intellectual stress of another sort :) . If you want, you can listen in remotely via the St. Louis Public Radio website here (even if they do misspell the pianist’s first name).
GIven day 2 of the end times, and the mass Women's Marches going on, why would 3CM the loser indulge yet again in his usual artsy topics on DK that no one else in the world cares about, and which won't do anything to save us from our current (and self-inflicted - thanks for nothing, dumb, racist, sexist Repuke voters and B-o-B'ers) slow-motion national trainwreck? Partly it's because my miniscule voice won't change anything anyway to make the larger world better, and also because it's what I tend to know better in terms of stuff to write about. But since this is DK, there is actually a fair bit of political subtext behind the legend of William Tell, and the whole story of the apple on his kid's head and the bow and arrow thing.
First, for your listening enjoyment, here's one video of the complete overture (bonus loser points to anyone who can guess why 3CM the loser chose this particular YT video):
But to get to the juicy "political" stuff, this is where the Metropolitan Opera's website comes to the rescue (with a hearty "Heigh-Ho, Synopsis!"). Some quick background to the excerpt, namely that the setting is 14th century Switzerland, under Austrian rule, where the governor, Albrecht (or Hermann) Gessler (spelled "Gesler" in the synopsis), rules with an iron hand (well, duh). In Act I, here's the set up for the "apple" moment in Act III:
"Leuthold...has killed an Austrian soldier who tried to abduct his daughter, and is now being pursued by Gesler’s troops. His only recourse is to flee to the far side of the lake, but Ruodi refuses to take him there, as a storm is brewing. But Tell, a skilled and intrepid oarsman, is willing to brave the storm and bring his compatriot to safety. Rodolphe, the captain of Gesler’s guard, looks on impotently. He presses the villagers to name Leuthold’s rescuer, threatening them with the death penalty. When Melcthal answers that there are no traitors amongst the Swiss, Rodolphe has him arrested and orders his men to raze the village."
In Act II, Gesler has had Melcthal executed for not spilling the beans about Tell being the oarsman rescuer. Now we get to Act III (BTW, Mathilde is a Hapsburg royal in love with Arnold, Melcthal's son):
"On the market square in Altdorf, Gesler forces the Swiss to commemorate their hundred-year occupation. The townsfolk are required to pay homage to his hat, raised up on a pole. They are ordered to dance until they collapse. Tell and his son Jemmy arrive but Tell refuses to bow to the hat. Rodolphe arrests them and recognizes Tell as Leuthold’s rescuer. Tell tries to dispatch Jemmy to his mother’s protection, so that the boy can give the signal for the uprising when the time comes. But Gesler intercedes and, incensed by Tell’s defiance, orders him to shoot an apple off Jemmy’s head with his crossbow. If he refuses, both father and son will die. Even when Tell does fall to his knees before Gesler, the governor is implacable. Jemmy speaks encouraging words to his father: he is confident of his marksmanship. And indeed, Tell shoots off the apple in a clean shot. Gesler discovers, however, a second arrow in Tell’s quiver. The archer plainly admits that it was intended for Gesler himself, should he have missed the apple and hit Jemmy. Furious, Gesler has his guards seize them both. But Mathilde rushes in and, in the name of the emperor, takes custody of the boy. Gesler intends to escort the archer himself to Küssnacht on the opposite shore of the lake, where he is to be thrown to wild animals in the dungeon. Rodolphe warns his superior of the hazardous conditions, but Gesler is not to be swayed. When their pleas for mercy go unheeded, the Swiss folk curse their oppressor. As Tell is taken away, Gesler’s army confronts the Swiss rebels."
It's pretty obvious that Gesler puts Tell in a situation of sadistic cruelty and risk with that request about the apple, simply because Gesler can. Sound familiar? If so desired, one can look at the "purity" issue here, because if William Tell had bowed to Gesler's hat, even through gritted teeth, in principle, his son Jemmy wouldn't then have been put at risk. Yes, Tell stands on principle and doesn't bow to Gesler's hat, but that leads to what could have been a total disaster had Tell missed the apple. Tell was obviously a superior marksman, but also extremely lucky. Purity can be noble in principle, but in practice, also has its risks downstream.
FWIW, you can jump in the synopsis to Act IV and read how Gesler is eventually taken care of, which is extremely prejudicial. Speaking of luck and circumstances factoring into that, it's also very lucky that Tell was able to escape his captors just beforehand, being the only guy who could steer the boat, so the guards had to free his shackles. Granted, the Swiss didn't have the luxury of elections then.
(Plus, you didn't see the Swiss who may have actually liked Gesler and the Austrian tyranny.)
So now a jump to the 2nd half of the concert program, which has the Symphony No. 15 of Dmitri Shostakovich, and which has some snarkily-reworked quotes of the "Lone Ranger" theme in the first movement. If you have just about 47 minutes to spare, you can watch a fine video of the whole Symphony from an Amsterdam concert performance here:
As Eddie Silva in his symphony program notes puts it:
"As the orchestral circus begins to roll into a clarion of dissonance, it collapses at the sound of the trumpet and the familiar William Tell Overture theme. Is this a joke? It sounds comical, laughable, but as with all Shostakovich quotations he slightly twists the meaning of the original. Is this a jovial hurrah of triumph—to revolution? Don’t bet on it."
You see the irony. Where in Rossini, Tell is nominally a "freedom fighter" and the "Lone Ranger" finale has heroic overtones of the good guys saving the day (and the nation, down the line), for Shostakovich and the USSR, no good guys there to rescue him and his country. Again, sound familiar? Plus, one has to wonder at the symbolism, if any, of Shostakovich's son, Maxim Shostakovich, conducting the world premiere of the work. Remember the apple on Tell's son's head, even if it may be a stretch to equate a piece of symphonic music with an arrow. Granted, here, no one forced Maxim to conduct the premiere, and there was no threat of "punishment" if the first performance hadn't gone over well. Still, it's something to think about.
On circumstantial grounds, it's eminently worth hearing this work live, because STL hasn't heard this piece live in over 12 years. 3CM the loser heard it then, and 3CM the loser will (hopefully) hear it now. We'll see.
With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories of the week......