Friendship, fiddling, and freezing in Boston
Mar 4th, 2015, 03:21 AM
#22
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Nikki, our first reunion weekend was in Boston in November. It was a very rainy November. We quickly decided September was better although November in NOLA is ok.
The restaurant sounds terrific. Love the name of your friend's old Beetle.
The restaurant sounds terrific. Love the name of your friend's old Beetle.
Mar 4th, 2015, 05:45 AM
#23
Original Poster
Saturday morning we eat a nice breakfast in the hotel. I am staying close to the hotel today. The other members of the party walk to the Christian Science Center to tour the Mapparium, a three-story stained glass globe showing the countries of the world as they were divided when it was built in 1935. There is a walkway through the center of the globe.
When our daughters were young, we had a subscription to the Boston Symphony Orchestra family concerts, and our tradition was to walk across the street after the concerts at Symphony Hall and visit the Mapparium. In those days it was free; now there is an admission charge. http://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/exhibits/mapparium
Some of the members of our party go shopping on Newbury Street, and Carol finds a nice pair of boots on sale. Ellen meets up with a friend who lives in Boston. Denise announces she has found the best coffee ever, and Ellen says she has also. Each in a different coffee shop. I am not a coffee drinker and don’t even remember where they went. Sorry.
By late afternoon, we have all gathered again in the suite and visit until it is time to go to dinner. We are attending a concert at the Berklee Performance Center so we are eating across the street at the Bangkok City Restaurant. I have gone there many times before concerts at Berklee or at Symphony Hall. This part of the weekend has been well planned for the weather, as the restaurant and the concert are a five minute walk from the hotel. It is snowing lightly when we go to dinner. The good news is that the temperature is rising and it is not as frigid as it has been. The bad news is that the snow is supposed to turn to rain and it is not hard to imagine that this will not make conditions between the snow banks any better.
Everyone enjoys the meal, although my duck in green curry is a bit hotter than I like it and I consume many glasses of water and much rice to dilute the spice. The restaurant empties out as we leave, and we see some of the same faces at the concert.
We are seeing Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, husband and wife fiddlers from Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. This is a fun, upbeat concert that gives me an insight into Cape Breton music and culture, to which I had not previously been exposed. There are videos of dances in barns where people are step dancing and square dancing to this music, and the piano player in the band on stage is a pretty mean step dancer himself. The music reminds Ellen and me of traditional music we heard in Scotland when we traveled there two summers ago. The videos of Cape Breton Island are also reminiscent of Scotland.
Then they bring out the kids, one at a time. The oldest, a nine year old girl, begins by fiddling along with a video of Natalie fiddling at her age. She is a good fiddler, but then she dances and it is hard to believe she is only nine. Then she is joined by her brother, a year or two younger, again a good fiddler but a terrific dancer. Then the next youngest one, and then the next, and then the next. The fifth one is just a toddler but is pretty enthusiastic. The sixth one is ten months old and is the only child who doesn’t come out and join the performance.
There is some controversy among our group about the family performance. I think it is adorable, something like the Von Trapp family from the Sound of Music. Some others take the point of view that this is child exploitation and the kids might turn out screwed up like Michael Jackson. Natalie Macmaster tells an anecdote about trying to teach her oldest daughter to play the fiddle for the first time when she was three years old, being met with tears, and thinking, “Oh no, she doesn’t have the music in her”. By the third try, at four years old, the girl took to it and is still playing. I see this as a humorous story, but others see it as sad and have sympathy for the poor crying child.
Of course I am the one who used to say when people asked whether my children played instruments, “That’s why I had children, so I would have someone to play music with.” And then, when my younger daughter became a pretty good violinist and pianist, I asked her to play with me one time, and she said she didn’t want to. I said, “Come on, you know how much I enjoy it.” And she said, “I know, that’s why you had children.” So I don’t say that any more.
She says she’s over it now. But she became an artist like her grandmother and not a musician like her mother.
But I digress. After the concert we walk back to the hotel in very light snow or rain or something in between and stay up talking and laughing even later than last night. It is Sunday morning by the time we call it a night.
When our daughters were young, we had a subscription to the Boston Symphony Orchestra family concerts, and our tradition was to walk across the street after the concerts at Symphony Hall and visit the Mapparium. In those days it was free; now there is an admission charge. http://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/exhibits/mapparium
Some of the members of our party go shopping on Newbury Street, and Carol finds a nice pair of boots on sale. Ellen meets up with a friend who lives in Boston. Denise announces she has found the best coffee ever, and Ellen says she has also. Each in a different coffee shop. I am not a coffee drinker and don’t even remember where they went. Sorry.
By late afternoon, we have all gathered again in the suite and visit until it is time to go to dinner. We are attending a concert at the Berklee Performance Center so we are eating across the street at the Bangkok City Restaurant. I have gone there many times before concerts at Berklee or at Symphony Hall. This part of the weekend has been well planned for the weather, as the restaurant and the concert are a five minute walk from the hotel. It is snowing lightly when we go to dinner. The good news is that the temperature is rising and it is not as frigid as it has been. The bad news is that the snow is supposed to turn to rain and it is not hard to imagine that this will not make conditions between the snow banks any better.
Everyone enjoys the meal, although my duck in green curry is a bit hotter than I like it and I consume many glasses of water and much rice to dilute the spice. The restaurant empties out as we leave, and we see some of the same faces at the concert.
We are seeing Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, husband and wife fiddlers from Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. This is a fun, upbeat concert that gives me an insight into Cape Breton music and culture, to which I had not previously been exposed. There are videos of dances in barns where people are step dancing and square dancing to this music, and the piano player in the band on stage is a pretty mean step dancer himself. The music reminds Ellen and me of traditional music we heard in Scotland when we traveled there two summers ago. The videos of Cape Breton Island are also reminiscent of Scotland.
Then they bring out the kids, one at a time. The oldest, a nine year old girl, begins by fiddling along with a video of Natalie fiddling at her age. She is a good fiddler, but then she dances and it is hard to believe she is only nine. Then she is joined by her brother, a year or two younger, again a good fiddler but a terrific dancer. Then the next youngest one, and then the next, and then the next. The fifth one is just a toddler but is pretty enthusiastic. The sixth one is ten months old and is the only child who doesn’t come out and join the performance.
There is some controversy among our group about the family performance. I think it is adorable, something like the Von Trapp family from the Sound of Music. Some others take the point of view that this is child exploitation and the kids might turn out screwed up like Michael Jackson. Natalie Macmaster tells an anecdote about trying to teach her oldest daughter to play the fiddle for the first time when she was three years old, being met with tears, and thinking, “Oh no, she doesn’t have the music in her”. By the third try, at four years old, the girl took to it and is still playing. I see this as a humorous story, but others see it as sad and have sympathy for the poor crying child.
Of course I am the one who used to say when people asked whether my children played instruments, “That’s why I had children, so I would have someone to play music with.” And then, when my younger daughter became a pretty good violinist and pianist, I asked her to play with me one time, and she said she didn’t want to. I said, “Come on, you know how much I enjoy it.” And she said, “I know, that’s why you had children.” So I don’t say that any more.
She says she’s over it now. But she became an artist like her grandmother and not a musician like her mother.
But I digress. After the concert we walk back to the hotel in very light snow or rain or something in between and stay up talking and laughing even later than last night. It is Sunday morning by the time we call it a night.
Mar 4th, 2015, 05:05 PM
#25
Original Poster
We have breakfast Sunday at Trident Booksellers and Café on Newbury Street. The very short walk there is not short enough. The temperature and the snow and the forces of the universe have conspired to make the sidewalks extremely treacherous and the street is not much better. Younger, more sure-footed people keep passing us. But we make it into the bookstore and are directed to a table upstairs. Denise’s daughter is meeting us for breakfast but has gotten off at the wrong T stop and arrives as we are almost done. So she orders and we all stay longer. At least with this young person there we fit in better with the demographics of the space. And we have lingered so long that by the time we walk back to the hotel the temperature has risen and the forces of the universe have made the ground less slippery, which is a relief. If I fell I would be found in the spring under a melting snow bank.
Carol is leaving after breakfast so we pack up and say goodbye to her and check out of the hotel and wait for Alan to come with the car and pick us up with our bags. He is taking us to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where we have tickets for a concert of chamber music. Denise walks; she is far more sure-footed than I am.
Tickets to the concert include admission to the museum so we walk in as far as the courtyard, which is planted with a beautiful garden. We are stopped by a guard who tells us that if we have coats they must be worn around our waist or draped over our shoulders. I am glad I have checked my coat but find this a strange rule.
As we sit in the courtyard, someone pulls out a pen to write something down and the guard comes over to tell her that pens are not allowed and offers her a pencil. This is starting to feel a little controlling. I feel sorry for the young museum guards who must enforce these rules and continually explain them to startled people. Denise leaves us for a quick trip upstairs to see some of the paintings. She returns and tells us that she has seen buckets under several leaks in the galleries. This is disturbing. We hope none of the paintings are affected. Meanwhile Barbara has been getting increasingly discouraging phone calls from her husband, who is managing the buckets at their home, which has several leaks caused by ice dams.
We head up to the concert hall in the museum’s new wing. I have not been to a concert here in decades. But I have subscribed to the podcasts from the chamber music series at the museum’s website and have hundreds of excellent recordings of chamber music taken from the weekly concerts. This is a wonderful source of free music of very high quality.
The concert hall has a unique design. There are four levels. On the ground level there are two rows of seats arranged in a square around the performance area. Then each balcony above has one row of seats around the square opening looking down at the performers, so that everyone has a front row balcony seat. As I sit and take in the sight, it occurs to me that this is an architectural reference to the courtyard in the old mansion where we were sitting earlier.
Today’s performers are the chamber orchestra “A Far Cry” with a program of music entitled “Aurora Borealis”. The musician from the orchestra who arranged this program explains that it is inspired by northern winters. Seems appropriate.
I love this concert, which includes music for string orchestra by Steve Reich, Benjamin Britten, Ingvar Lidholm, and Edvard Grieg, and an arrangement of Swedish fiddle tunes that have the audience clapping and stamping our feet.
I am particularly moved by one of the Two Elegiac Melodies by Grieg. The program contains a translation of the poem by Norwegian poet Aasmund Olavsson, Last Spring, on which it is based. It reads in part:
Once again I have seen the winter
give way to spring;
The wild cherry trees in full bloom,
I saw once again…
… But I am weary and I ask myself:
Is this the last one?
Let it be so: much that was waited
in life I have enjoyed;
I have received more than I deserved
and all may fade.
Once I was myself, in the full flow of spring
that fills my sight,
Once I wanted to find myself a home
and convivial company.
All that the spring presented to me
and even the flowers I plucked,
And I thought it was the ancestral spirits
that danced and sighed.
And so between birch and fir tree I found
a mystery in the spring;
And so the sound of the flute that I cut
seemed full of tears.
The program says that this has been transcribed for solo piano, and I resolve to find a copy and play it on the piano. I am hoping the melody will be something I can also play on the flute.
Carol is leaving after breakfast so we pack up and say goodbye to her and check out of the hotel and wait for Alan to come with the car and pick us up with our bags. He is taking us to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where we have tickets for a concert of chamber music. Denise walks; she is far more sure-footed than I am.
Tickets to the concert include admission to the museum so we walk in as far as the courtyard, which is planted with a beautiful garden. We are stopped by a guard who tells us that if we have coats they must be worn around our waist or draped over our shoulders. I am glad I have checked my coat but find this a strange rule.
As we sit in the courtyard, someone pulls out a pen to write something down and the guard comes over to tell her that pens are not allowed and offers her a pencil. This is starting to feel a little controlling. I feel sorry for the young museum guards who must enforce these rules and continually explain them to startled people. Denise leaves us for a quick trip upstairs to see some of the paintings. She returns and tells us that she has seen buckets under several leaks in the galleries. This is disturbing. We hope none of the paintings are affected. Meanwhile Barbara has been getting increasingly discouraging phone calls from her husband, who is managing the buckets at their home, which has several leaks caused by ice dams.
We head up to the concert hall in the museum’s new wing. I have not been to a concert here in decades. But I have subscribed to the podcasts from the chamber music series at the museum’s website and have hundreds of excellent recordings of chamber music taken from the weekly concerts. This is a wonderful source of free music of very high quality.
The concert hall has a unique design. There are four levels. On the ground level there are two rows of seats arranged in a square around the performance area. Then each balcony above has one row of seats around the square opening looking down at the performers, so that everyone has a front row balcony seat. As I sit and take in the sight, it occurs to me that this is an architectural reference to the courtyard in the old mansion where we were sitting earlier.
Today’s performers are the chamber orchestra “A Far Cry” with a program of music entitled “Aurora Borealis”. The musician from the orchestra who arranged this program explains that it is inspired by northern winters. Seems appropriate.
I love this concert, which includes music for string orchestra by Steve Reich, Benjamin Britten, Ingvar Lidholm, and Edvard Grieg, and an arrangement of Swedish fiddle tunes that have the audience clapping and stamping our feet.
I am particularly moved by one of the Two Elegiac Melodies by Grieg. The program contains a translation of the poem by Norwegian poet Aasmund Olavsson, Last Spring, on which it is based. It reads in part:
Once again I have seen the winter
give way to spring;
The wild cherry trees in full bloom,
I saw once again…
… But I am weary and I ask myself:
Is this the last one?
Let it be so: much that was waited
in life I have enjoyed;
I have received more than I deserved
and all may fade.
Once I was myself, in the full flow of spring
that fills my sight,
Once I wanted to find myself a home
and convivial company.
All that the spring presented to me
and even the flowers I plucked,
And I thought it was the ancestral spirits
that danced and sighed.
And so between birch and fir tree I found
a mystery in the spring;
And so the sound of the flute that I cut
seemed full of tears.
The program says that this has been transcribed for solo piano, and I resolve to find a copy and play it on the piano. I am hoping the melody will be something I can also play on the flute.
Mar 5th, 2015, 10:03 AM
#26
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It sounds like a great weekend with friends. I didn't know about the coat/pen rules at the Gardner. I guess I was there most recently last year in warm weather.
Thanks for the wonderful write-up. I wonder if the friends, who reacted negatively to the young children's playing, had to take music lessons when they were young and didn't respond well to it then.
Where to next year?
Thanks for the wonderful write-up. I wonder if the friends, who reacted negatively to the young children's playing, had to take music lessons when they were young and didn't respond well to it then.
Where to next year?
Mar 5th, 2015, 02:50 PM
#28
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What a fun report. I used to live in New Hampshire but have a dear friend in Boston so I spent many happy weekends there. Love the Gardner Museum but the first time we drove there we couldn't seem to find it!
Mar 5th, 2015, 03:39 PM
#30
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We liked the Eliot Hotel, I would go back. Helpful staff, manageable size, good breakfast menu at the attached Clio restaurant. Renovated rooms in good condition for an older hotel.
I have also been to Pho Basil but tend to gravitate to Bangkok City. Maybe because it is larger and doesn't fill up as quickly, but it also seems more pleasant and I don't remember the food at Pho Basil as standing out. Could be I didn't order the right stuff.
I have also been to Pho Basil but tend to gravitate to Bangkok City. Maybe because it is larger and doesn't fill up as quickly, but it also seems more pleasant and I don't remember the food at Pho Basil as standing out. Could be I didn't order the right stuff.
Mar 5th, 2015, 04:16 PM
#31
Original Poster
After the concert, Barbara takes off immediately to join the bucket brigade at her leaking house. Denise runs to catch the bus back to Western Massachusetts. Alan, Ellen, and I head to Cambridge to meet our daughter Eileen and her boyfriend for dinner.
While waiting for Eileen to walk from her apartment, we have drinks at the Cambridge Brewing Company. There is a sign that the floor is extremely slippery because of the chemicals used outside to treat the sidewalks that people are tracking in on their shoes. It seems wrong that the same substance used to create a better walking surface outside creates a worse walking surface inside. Seems to defeat the purpose. I hold onto the bar as we get to our seats. Eileen and her boyfriend arrive, join us for drinks, and then we all walk across the street for dinner at Hungry Mother.
I have been to Hungry Mother before and love it. We do not get to go often because we never plan far enough ahead to make reservations, but there is an early reservation available this evening if we promise to be out in two hours. There is only one table large enough for a party of five.
Three of us decide to splurge and order the four course dinner plus treats. There is a delicious complimentary small starter of smoked trout on something or other that I don’t remember, and then I start with clams stuffed with corn bread and bacon, which are good but not extraordinary. Alan’s crispy sweetbreads are very good. My next course is steak tartare, which I love. Then I have some kind of excellent steak preparation (this course is cooked, but as is my preference, just barely). We order side dishes of collard greens and skillet cornbread with sorghum butter for the table to share. Great stuff.
My dessert of plum upside down cake with olive oil ice cream and filberts wins the table popularity contest. But Alan’s chocolate terrine is nothing to sneeze at. Yes, this is the second chocolate terrine of the weekend; it must be the trendy flavor du jour. We are finished just over two hours after our arrival. We don’t want any black marks against our name when we try to make reservations in the future. There seem to be empty tables, but it is still pretty early.
We drop Eileen and her boyfriend off at their apartment and then drive home with Ellen, who will spend the night with us before taking the train home tomorrow. It is disheartening to return to our driveway lined with steep snow banks and covered with several inches of intractable ice. There is a ten-foot wall of snow created by the plow at the head of the driveway that will alternately melt and freeze for the next month or two, creating perpetually hazardous walking on the driveway.
Such is winter in New England, perhaps a bit more so this year. But this one weekend has been warmed by love and laughter, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
While waiting for Eileen to walk from her apartment, we have drinks at the Cambridge Brewing Company. There is a sign that the floor is extremely slippery because of the chemicals used outside to treat the sidewalks that people are tracking in on their shoes. It seems wrong that the same substance used to create a better walking surface outside creates a worse walking surface inside. Seems to defeat the purpose. I hold onto the bar as we get to our seats. Eileen and her boyfriend arrive, join us for drinks, and then we all walk across the street for dinner at Hungry Mother.
I have been to Hungry Mother before and love it. We do not get to go often because we never plan far enough ahead to make reservations, but there is an early reservation available this evening if we promise to be out in two hours. There is only one table large enough for a party of five.
Three of us decide to splurge and order the four course dinner plus treats. There is a delicious complimentary small starter of smoked trout on something or other that I don’t remember, and then I start with clams stuffed with corn bread and bacon, which are good but not extraordinary. Alan’s crispy sweetbreads are very good. My next course is steak tartare, which I love. Then I have some kind of excellent steak preparation (this course is cooked, but as is my preference, just barely). We order side dishes of collard greens and skillet cornbread with sorghum butter for the table to share. Great stuff.
My dessert of plum upside down cake with olive oil ice cream and filberts wins the table popularity contest. But Alan’s chocolate terrine is nothing to sneeze at. Yes, this is the second chocolate terrine of the weekend; it must be the trendy flavor du jour. We are finished just over two hours after our arrival. We don’t want any black marks against our name when we try to make reservations in the future. There seem to be empty tables, but it is still pretty early.
We drop Eileen and her boyfriend off at their apartment and then drive home with Ellen, who will spend the night with us before taking the train home tomorrow. It is disheartening to return to our driveway lined with steep snow banks and covered with several inches of intractable ice. There is a ten-foot wall of snow created by the plow at the head of the driveway that will alternately melt and freeze for the next month or two, creating perpetually hazardous walking on the driveway.
Such is winter in New England, perhaps a bit more so this year. But this one weekend has been warmed by love and laughter, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Mar 6th, 2015, 02:12 AM
#32
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Except for the snow, it sounds like a perfect weekend. Thanks for sharing the wonderful details. I can't imagine dancing and music as a form of child exploitation. A couple of times we have enjoyed a free fiddler's picnic in a nearby town. The event is held on a shady church lawn but it is poorly advertised. I loved the range of ages who played and the old tunes some of the elders played.
Mar 6th, 2015, 03:44 AM
#33
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I am so happy that you got to experience (I don't just write "hear") A Far Cry. We went to a performance on the theme of improvisation at Jordan Hall in January. We actually went because Robert Levin, the famous improviser of cadenzas, was the featured soloist, but we fell in love with the ensemble itself.
Since you are a pianist, you will appreciate Levin's famous trick. Each member of the ensemble wrote down a phrase, he drew four of them out of a hat, thought for a moment, then improvised a substantial piece using all of the phrases, theme and variation.
Thanks for the tip on the podcasts and on restaurants that have thrived since we lived in Boston.
Since you are a pianist, you will appreciate Levin's famous trick. Each member of the ensemble wrote down a phrase, he drew four of them out of a hat, thought for a moment, then improvised a substantial piece using all of the phrases, theme and variation.
Thanks for the tip on the podcasts and on restaurants that have thrived since we lived in Boston.
Mar 11th, 2015, 06:47 AM
#36
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Reading on March 11 with a smile. Oh yes, the weather in Boston has been a trial but you did brave cold and snow. Look, the sun is shining today with rising temps! So you did have a nice weekend according to your detailed report about sights and concerts and dining shared with daughter and good friends. And safely home to whereverland.
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