Stargate Atlantis

I haven’t felt much like reading lately, too busy reading for my job to want to read in my free time.  So I’ve been using streaming Netflix at night before I go to bed and catching up on television series that I missed the first time around.

First I watched Veronica Mars, all three seasons.  I wrote about it here. I just finished watching Stargate Atlantis, all five seasons.

I’ve written before about how much I enjoyed Stargate SG-1 and how I was disappointed by Stargate Universe.  So I wasn’t sure what to expect from Stargate Atlantis. 

I liked it.  I’m not sure I liked it better than SG-1 but I liked it.  I think, in many ways it was better made than SG-1 (at least better made than the early years of SG-1), with higher production values.  It had a lot of the same kind of humor.  And there was real synergy among the cast.

Most of the cast I was not familiar with, at least in the first three seasons.  The exception was David Hewlett who reprised his Rodney McKay character from SG-1, but tempered to make him more bearable.  In season 4 they brought in Amanda Tapping’s character, Samantha Carter, to be the commander of the base.  I love the character of Sam Carter but really felt that the writers didn’t know what to do with her.  I was sorry she was gone in Season 5 and was not sure that replacing her with Roberto Picardo’s long running character, Mr. Woolsey, would work.  I shouldn’t have doubted him.  Picardo had been playing Woolsey on SG-1 for many guest appearances and, once made a regular character, did a great job showing the growth of his character (some of you will remember Roberto Picardo as the holographic doctor on StarTrek the Next Generation).

You may recall that one of the problems I had with Stargate Universe was that the writers did not create a unique “Big Bad” for the new galaxy.  Stargate Atlantis didn’t have that problem, they created a big bad right from the beginning and they were very Big and very Bad.  The Wraith were scary.  They looked scary and the concept behind them (that they fed on human lives) was scary.  Not scary like the Reavers on Firefly, who literally raped and ate their victims.  The Wraith were less monstrous and more alien.  And one of them, Todd the Wraith, was a sometimes ally. (Todd, you ask?  Well, they had to call him something.)

Another difference between Atlantis and Universe was that the writers didn’t hesitate to kill off characters.  Well, they killed them off in the way that Stargate characters get killed off – they come back as clones or memories or whatever.  But they do get killed off.   Stargate Universe needed to kill off some characters.

Like SG-1 and unlike Universe, Atlantis was filled with strong women characters.  The leader, Elizabeth Weir, is a scientist and no pushover.  Teyla Emmagan, a member of the team of explorers, is an alien woman who is the leader of her people.  The Wraith have queens who are VERY scary.   In Season 4, Jewel Staite joins the cast as a doctor and while she is not a military person, she is a smart and capable doctor.   There are, in fact, more strong women characters than there ever were on SG-1.   Universe, of course, had women characters who bored me.

The other cast members were very good.  I’d never seen Joe Flanagan in anything before but his portrayal of the main character, major (then colonel) John Shepherd, was very winning.

In general, I think five years is long enough for a series to run.  I thought SG-1 got a little tired by the last few seasons.  On the other hand, I have no idea why they shut down Atlantis and replaced it with Stargate Universe.  Atlantis was a much better show.

So now … what next.  I’m thinking … Doctor Who? 

Rare and Special

Saturday night at the Symphony was one of those far too rare nights when the audience was so excited by a performance that total strangers felt compelled to talk to each other about it.   The occasion was the performance of Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto by the Saint Louis Symphony with guest artist Stephen Hough.

I am not that familiar with the Second Piano Concerto, although I’m sure I must have heard a recording of it at some point in my life.  After all, I love Tchaikovsky and I love piano.  So I must have heard it at some point.  But I don’t remember it and I know I’ve never heard it live.

Unlike the First Piano Concerto which I heard a couple of weeks ago at the symphony, the Second Piano Concerto seems more thematically coherent.  It also features virtuoso moments for the pianist, especially in the first movement, in which he can play solo in a cadenza-like section that is very long. 

Hough is a brilliant pianist and by that I don’t just mean that he is technically brilliant, although he is. I again sacrificed acoustics for sight lines and sat orchestra level on the side where I could see the pianist’s hands. There were moments in which his hands were moving so fast that they were actually a blur.  I’m not exaggerating.  His notes are crisp and clean and his pedal work is inspired.  But that isn’t what makes an awe inspiring performance.  There are many technically proficient pianists out there who give fine, but not particularly special performances.

What made this performance breathtaking was the almost symbiotic relationship Hough had with the orchestra.  They were as one.   Compare this with the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto which featured Yefim Bronfman in which Bronfman played beautifully from a technical point of view.  But he and the orchestra were not as one in parts of the piece.

Some of the credit for Saturday night certainly goes to Ward Stare, SLSO’s Resident Conductor who did a fine job.  He’s very young (or at least very young-looking) and I predict will be evolve into a popular conductor with audiences because he conducts in the dramatic style that audiences love to watch.  But the orchestra sounded perfect under him and if there wasn’t complete musical sympathy between he and Hough, it was not apparent. 

But even technical fireworks and a symbiotic relationship with the orchestra aren’t enough to raise the hair on my arms and send tingles up them as happened to me on Saturday.  There is … something.  Some undefineable musicianship where an artist seems to be not only at one with the other performers but at one with the piece being performed.  Hough clearly loves performing this work and finding the moments in a particular  performance of the work with a particular  orchestra and a particular  conductor.  Sometimes it all comes together as it did on Saturday. 

That is the beauty of live performance.  The work may be a classic, performed time and again, but the performance is unique.  There will never be another performance exactly like Saturday night’s performance.  It is rare to witness a performance where all of the pieces come together, it is usually enough when most of them come together.  But when they all come together in a unique moment, the audience is part of the specialness and when the lights come up total strangers turn to each other and say “wow.  Just wow.”

Hough will be back with SLSO to perform the first three Rachmaninoff piano concerti next year.  I want to be there for all three.  And I’m not going to sacrifice sound for sight – I want the best sound I can get to enjoy those performances to the max.

A Stephen Hough Preview

Stephen Hough is coming to St. Louis to play the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.  Here is a three part interview done with him a couple of years ago in which he discusses playing Tchaikovsky. 

He points out that Tchaikovsky is physically tiring for the pianist – all of those big chords.  But he also sees an innocence in Tchaikovsky and thinks it is important to balance the two sides of Tchaikovsky.

In part 3 he discusses working with conductors, including prior performances with David Robertson.   He won’t be playing with Robertson in St. Louis.  Ward Stare, the SLSO’s Resident Conductor, will be on the podium.

Tchaikovsky–Part One

A Saturday night at the St. Louis Symphony is a fine way to spend an evening.  I don’t know why I don’t do it more often.  I always intend to go more but then time gets away from me.  If I don’t have tickets in advance I don’t think to go.

Last fall I saw that the SLSO was performing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 AND Piano Concerto No. 2 this season.  I love Tchaikovsky and I love piano concerti so I bought tickets for both.  This past weekend was the First Piano Concerto.  The orchestra was under the direction of David Robertson and the guest soloist was Yefim Bronfman.  It was a fine performance although I thought the performance got better as the work progressed. 

The opening of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano concerto is very famous with the piano and the orchestra playing together.  When piano and orchestra play simultaneously there is a chance that the piano might tend to get a bit drowned out by the orchestra. That almost but didn’t quite happen last night.  But that also might have been my choice of seats.  I’d much rather sit in the balcony at Powell Hall because I love the enveloping sound up there.  But I wanted to see the pianists hands so I chose orchestra level seats over to the side.  That might have accounted for the not-so-perfect acoustics.   I also felt that the there were moments (only moments, and rare ) where the orchestra and the pianist were not performing “as one” , but as they moved into the second portion of the first movement they began to work off of each other as they should and that feeling went away.

I’ve heard this concerto so many times that I didn’t think it was possible to have a new thought about it.  I’m always struck anew each time I hear it how the first part is so different from the rest of the concerto and how the rest of the concerto sounds like bits and pieces of one of his ballets (I always think of it as pieces of music rejected from Sleeping Beauty – which is not to say it is anything but exquisite).  But this time, as I listened to the second movement, I suddenly thought that it was as if the piano was intended to be the ballerina.  Perhaps it was the way Bronfman approached the work, but I thought it was quite charming, more charming than I normally do.

The second half of the program was Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 in E Minor.  Shostakovich is not my favorite composer but I didn’t mind this one.  There were parts that were a little boring but the second movement galloped along and was quite thrilling.  The symphony sounded superb under Robertson and made me want to go back and hear them again.

Which will happen in two weeks when I return to hear the Tchaikovsky Second Piano Concerto.  This time the guest pianist will be Stephen Hough who is also one of my favorite bloggers.  

For your listening pleasure here is Mr. Bronfman performing the third movement at the Herkulessaal, Munich Residenz conducted by Mariss Jansons.  They took it slightly faster than SLSO did. You can see the physicality required to perform this.

Wherein I finish my Veronica Mars Marathon …

OK.  Now I get it. 

I mean, I watched the third season of Veronica Mars back in Real Time because many people told me I should.  And I liked it.  I was sorry it got cancelled.  But I can’t say that I loved it.   That’s because I didn’t really get it because I hadn’t seen Seasons 1 and 2. 

I liked the Nancy Drew aspects of the series, but I didn’t really understand why Veronica had this incredibly boring boyfriend named Logan - who lived in a hotel, which just seemed weird. 

I kept thinking that Veronica needed a real boyfriend.  She needed to get together with that guy Piz, who clearly liked her and seemed like a normal college guy.  He lived in a dorm room.   He worked at the college radio station. But then she did get together with him, and I found myself unsatisfied.

Then the series ended.

A couple of weeks ago when I was doing my taxes and having my annual lovefest with the shredder, I discovered that all three seasons of Veronica Mars are on streaming Netflix.  So I started watching.  And now I get it.

I have no idea why the writers decided to drastically change Logan in Season 3.  I suspect it was intended to be a transitional year.  After all, they put him through a lot in the first two seasons.  Pretty much every important person in his life died – except for his best friend who ran away to Australia.  And Veronica.  Now that I’ve seen the first two seasons I can understand the season 3 Logan much better.  And the character seemed to be transitioning toward the end of the season into someone better.  Someone like an older version of the younger Logan, it turns out.  But then the series was cancelled so there was nothing to transition to.

But now I get it.  And I’m sadder than ever that Veronica Mars was cancelled.

 

More About St. Louis in the Civil War

The St. Louis Post Dispatch looks back at the incidents leading up to the City’s loss of control over its own police department back during the civil war.  And the death of 35 citizens and soldiers.

I’m not sure how I feel about the 150th anniversary observances of the Civil War.  It was ugly and bloody and other than writing about it and maybe laying a few wreaths at Arlington and other national cemeteries, I’m not sure we should be doing much more. But I suppose Civil War re-enactors demand more.  From an article last week:

A re-enactment of a bloody riot on Olive Street will be the first big attraction among local observances planned for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

*****

Missouri's secessionist governor, Claiborne Fox Jackson, had mustered the state militia to the site of present-day St. Louis University in hopes of seizing the U.S. arsenal on the Mississippi River at Arsenal Street. Troops under Union Capt. Nathaniel Lyon marched to the militia camp, named in Jackson's honor, and quickly obtained its surrender. But as Lyon assembled his captives on Olive near Compton Avenue, gunfire erupted between troops and mob.

Do we really want to re-enact things like this?   I know it is history but do we really need to re-enact it?  Someday will there be a re-enactment of the Watts Riots? Why would they consider this? And “events” like this will be held during the four year commemoration of the War.  

But of course, history buffs travel.  And spend money.

"St. Louis has a big story to tell in this watershed period of our nation," she said. "History buffs, known in our business as heritage travelers, stay longer and spend more money than typical travelers."

I don’t know why this bothers me so much.  In general, historical re-enactments fascinate me.  But this state is so divided right now that it wouldn’t surprise me if the re-enactment of the Civil War led to more division.  Really and truly – I’m pretty sure there are Confederate sympathizers still living in Missouri.  

Frank Aufmuth, an organizer of the Camp Jackson event, said re-enactors from at least 10 states would form up near the north entrance of the St. Louis County park. He said the scene in 1861 was a confusion of blue-clad Union soldiers, allied German immigrant units in plain clothes, surrendering Missouri militiamen wearing blue or gray uniforms and an angry mob all around them.

Yep.  That’s what we need.  Staged angry mobs. 

An Interview with Dorothy Dunnett

Via DunnettCentral on Twitter I found this video of my favorite author Dorothy Dunnett when she was interviewed back in the early 1990’s.  I was particularly interested in her discussion of her life as an artist and seeing some of her early sketches of her son.  

And I liked hearing about her research and her relationship with her husband Alistair Dunnett, who at one time was the editor of The Scotsman.  Although she talked about living to be 150, she died much too young at the age of 78, in 2001.