Wednesday at the Park

On Wednesday I had one of my tourist days. If the weather looks well set on a Wednesday, I’ll often go into the city and pick up a cheap Broadway matinee ticket. Then I’ll enjoy people watching over a coffee in Times Square, and meet my wife for lunch before the show. Afterwards I’ll walk again, to central park if there is time, and have a cup of tea before evensong at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue, where the singing of my favourite type of music is second to none. After that I’ll walk uptown for my own early music choir rehearsal.

This sort of day makes me feel blessed to be free and in New York City. I did the same thing the day after the election as a sort of tonic. Wherever you live, there will be great places to visit that will make you feel better, so find some time to take advantage. Residents usually don’t do enough tourism around their own neighbourhoods.

The matinee yesterday was the Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George. I had never seen a live production of that show before, and I loved it. It was an honest production that did not try to do too much. Both lead actors have lovely but tough singing parts, and I would score each of them about seven out of ten, plenty good enough not to spoil the show. The music is some of Sondheim’s best, and culminates in the beautiful number Sunday that closes both acts and had me in tears.

But the strength of the show is the story, which is so much more thought provoking than most of the inane musicals on offer. It centres on the creation by Georges Seurat of the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte. The characters come from the painting, with stories created in its Parisian park and Seurat’s studio, including of a girlfriend Seurat gets pregnant and then abandons. The second act takes us forward a hundred years, linked by that same baby, now ninety-eight, sharing the stage with another George, the great grandson of Seurat, also trying to make his way as an artist, but in Chicago.

I loved the way that Sondheim set songs from Lapine’s book to make points about art as well as love and human nature, and somewhat deeper points than the ones we usually are bombarded with in musicals.

Seurat’s mum has a sweet duet with her son about nostalgia. She is a rather bitter old woman, always complaining about how things were better in the past, and the song acknowledges nostalgia but reminds us that we would generally be better served finding awe at the world of the present.

Then there are songs about dedicating a life to work and about perfectionism, the balance between doing an established thing better and better and trying something new. Again, Sondheim acknowledges the dilemma, and explores it through the fictional character of Seurat’s great grandson. In the end, an artist must be prepared to move on, to take a risk, to push the boundaries, for that is how true progress comes about.

Then there is a lovely message about legacy. The ninety-eight year-old woman makes the interesting claim that the only things that we leave behind are our children and our art. This feels like a simplification to me, but still something worthy of thought.

The claim ignores any potential we have to change the world by our actions or relationships, when plainly everything we do has that potential. But perhaps we can allow that most such actions are so ephemeral that their impact on humanity can be discounted. Then we have to expand the concept of art to include scientific discovery, and also politics, sport and even warfare. Then indeed the claim has merit. Think of everyone from two hundred or more years ago that you have heard of, and why. It will be via their art – with its expanded definition. And plainly we live on through our offspring.

The context of the claim is the old lady encouraging her grandson to be as courageous and creative as he can with his art, and at the same time to reconcile the differences with his ex-partner so that they can produce a child. The same context plays out (in the musical) for Georges Seurat himself, who becomes so lost in his art that he even walks away from his unborn child, and eventually from his own life at thirty-one by failing to take adequate care of his health. In his case, original art truly is everything, and we only have to look at his magnificent work to feel gratitude for that.

All of these dilemmas feel real to Sondheim in his score, and one more perhaps even more so. A song from a scene in Chicago shows the young artist buffeted by all sorts of challenges beyond the range of his artistic talent. He has to bow the whims of his sponsor, faun to his patrons, procure materials and manage a team, and handle critics. In the end the quality of the art itself can appear incidental, its impact depending on so many outside factors.

That has always been the life of the artist. If Palestrina had not secured his job at the Sistine Chapel and if the Church hierarchy at Leipzig had obtained their wish to be rid of J.S. Bach, we would probably not have any access to their works today. Indeed, if Seurat had not had the benefit of wealthy parents and a tolerant sponsor he might have vanished into obscurity, and perhaps much of impressionism with it. An artistic legacy can be quite a lottery.

I have experienced this with musicians, and always advise people that music is generally far better as a hobby than as a career. Most professional musicians become worn down by the poor pay, the dependence on people you don’t respect, the bitching and the relentless competition. Sad to relate, in many, many cases it even causes them to lose their passion for music itself. Those of us with music for a hobby can simply enjoy our passion.

The legacy lottery is still there, but it has changed. Like so many specialities, in the past it was the preserve of white men of noble birth or other familial advantage. Gesualdo was a count, and even compositions of Henry the eighth have survived. What a loss to humanity it is that for much of our existence, the artistic potential of almost all of us was doomed to be unfulfilled. I suppose the old lady in Sunday would just encourage us to have more babies!

But in one generation the lottery has changed. Last Sunday my chamber choir performed two exquisite motets by contemporary composers. One of these, Zander Fick, was a lad of twenty-five, who works in Pretoria as a financial advisor.

So now anyone can compose, anyone can record and anyone can become famous. In visual arts it is even more extreme – all we need is a smart phone and a single photograph can secure our legacy.

So we have gone from a grossly restricted supply to an almost unlimited supply of art. But good art is still in the eye of the beholder, and a legacy will only belong to those who can win the marketing game, nowadays often as not controlled by Google or Facebook, and influenced more than ever by extraneous factors like sex appeal.

Still, we can surely celebrate that art has opened up to humanity now. I was certainly grateful to Zander Fick last Sunday, and even more grateful to Stephen Sondheim on Wednesday. Art is good.