Family Affairs

I just have a few "family" items to talk about.  

First, my father-in-law is quoted several times in an article by Michael Phillips in today’s Tribune.  Charles Grass is called “Charlie” Grass in the article because he had toured in a vaudeville dance duet act with Bob Fosse as “Bobby and Charlie Riff”—“The Riff Brothers” from about ages 9 to 17.  Charles helped make the Chicago connection for the Phillips preview of a new book about Bob Fosse, called—remarkably enough, “Fosse.”  (Charles, also provided a lot of early photographs and background for the book.)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-bob-fosse-phillips-20131025,0,5727028.column

The next item is that my wife, Marie Grass Amenta, leads her Midwest Motet Society in a concert of “Galant” choral music on Sunday, November 3, 2013 at 4:00 pm at Church of the Holy Family in Park Forest.  http://midwestmotet.org/

No, I didn’t have a failure of my spell check when I said “Galant.”  Galant is a style of music that is wedged between the Baroque and the Classical Eras.  This entailed a big revolt against the thick, dense contrapuntal textures of the Baroque to much lighter, melody-and-accompaniment textures with less complicated harmonies and shorter lines and phrases.  There was a lot of experimentation and simplification.   It is funny to hear Marie say things with glee in her voice like—“Get on the happy train” and “This is Mozart without the hard edge” when describing this music. Truly, this is fun music.  It certainly doesn’t have the deep psychological truth of the great Baroque and Classical masters.  (I listened to a Sir Charles Mackerras conducted performance of the Mozart Symphony No. 39 this AM—truly terrifying moments within the joy.  Mozart **does** have an edge.)  But, hey, sometimes fun and unreflective happy is what we need.  BTW, Leonardo Leo's Messa Completa will have its Modern Premiere in a new edition at the MMS concert.