{"id":1445,"date":"2020-11-26T21:30:25","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T21:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=1445"},"modified":"2020-11-26T21:30:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T21:30:30","slug":"listening-for-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/26\/listening-for-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Listening for America"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Appreciating Listening for America<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Along with a greater appreciation for the intricacies of musical theater, Rob Kapilow’s Listening for America<\/em> has something to teach about our need for each other.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Leah Libresco Sargeant <\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Musical theater is the most American form of art. Rob Kapilow\u2019s Listening for America<\/em> is a tour through the history of American musical theater, and he is as attentive to the particular, individual genius of composers as to the collaborations and cultural ferment that are only possible in a nation of immigrants.<\/p>

The beginnings of musical theater are Jewish composers reworking Black music for other audiences. No one did it better than Irving Berlin, n\u00e9 Israel Beilin, who was delightfully profligate in his commercial ambitions. Berlin penned a song for every possible market, from \u201cYiddisha Eyes\u201d and \u201cOh, How That German Could Love\u201d to stranger stews of \u201cYiddle on Your Fiddle Play Some Ragtime\u201d and \u201cSweet Marie, Make a Rag-a-Time-a-Dance with Me.\u201d<\/p>

Kapilow, a composer himself, has an eye for the details.<\/p>

\u201cDetails are everything. The difference between a good song and a great one is both enormous and infinitesimal. It\u2019s hundreds of small, inspired choices made by a songwriter and lyricist, note by note, word by word, rhythm by rhythm, chord by chord.\u201d<\/p>

Each chapter of his book is focused on a single song (Berlin gets two chapters\u2014one for \u201cCheek to Cheek\u201d and one for \u201cI Got the Sun in the Morning\u201d), which he rounds out with biographical notes on the composer, the history of the production, and where the work fits into the evolving story of musical theater.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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I can recognize the shape of an explanation or a proof, and individual steps strike me with a sudden, piercing beauty.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Simply as a work of musical history, the book would be a delight. But Kapilow offers more. He runs a series of programs for NPR and PBS titled \u201cWhat Makes it Great?\u201d where he demystifies classical music for casual listeners. Listening for America<\/em> is written in the same explanatory spirit, and it comes with homework. The text is studded with musical notation, so that the reader can bring the book over to a piano to plunk out passages (or, in my case, listen to the YouTube playlists he\u2019s put together).<\/p>

I\u2019m no casual listener\u2014my family tackled long car trips by singing through original cast albums. I\u2019ve tracked down a production of Sondheim\u2019s semi-cursed musical Road Show <\/em>(and, post-pandemic, would love any tips on productions of Anyone Can Whistle<\/em>). And I made everyone at my birthday party watch a double-header of Company<\/em> and Passion<\/em> as preparation for a symposium on love.<\/p>

But I\u2019ve still felt shut out from a full appreciation of the shows I love. My music theory background is weak, so I find myself turning to a friend to ask, \u201cWhat is it that makes the final chord in \u201cColor and Light\u201d so good<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>

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To help me out,\u00a0my friend Ivan Plis sent me a 750-word commentary on fifty seconds worth of music, tackling the key changes, suspended chords, and other choices Sondheim makes, until we land at the end of the song in no specific key:<\/p>

\u201cBut our journey to greater connection is one that delights in unknowing: instead of a conclusive \u2018landing,\u2019 we continue in the same vein as ever. It\u2019s ostensibly G major, but could just as easily be E minor, or A minor, or something else\u2014concluding with an even wider crash than the one underscoring George and Dot\u2019s outburst. We don\u2019t need to be in the key of anything in particular; give me more expansion, more potential, more color, more light.\u201d<\/p>

I follow his explanation in the way I sometimes followed proofs in my vector calculus class. I can recognize the shape of an explanation or a proof, and individual steps strike me with a sudden, piercing beauty. But I know I don\u2019t understand<\/em> it in the truest sense\u2014I couldn\u2019t explain it to somebody else.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The single chord shimmers because of how it exists in relationship with everything that has gone before.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Reading Kapilow took me one step further into appreciation. He has a gift for worked examples and teaches by rewriting the songs he\u2019s showcasing. He changes just one small detail at a time to show how it supports the song. He might remove a bluesy swing, a shift up the octave, a chromatic note, to come up with a more pedestrian variant he calls the \u201cKapilow version.\u201d None of his rewrites have a wrong<\/em> note, but they lack inventiveness.<\/p>

Playing his rewrites side by side with the originals, you can hear how the expected version might sound good enough, but the real version is sublime.<\/p>

What I\u2019ve gleaned from his apophatic approach is what Ivan was trying to tell me the whole time. The single chord shimmers because of how it exists in relationship with everything that has gone before. \u00a0<\/p>

The composers build up their songs layer by layer, so that each small choice is marked by how it harmonizes with what has come before. I can\u2019t capture the chord by having a friend guide my fingers to ring out those final measures in isolation.<\/p>

Our institutions and connections to each other are similarly built piece by piece. Here, my mistake of trying to play just the finale looks a little different. We try to remix or excerpt the cultural traditions that have sustained us, pulling out the single element that seems necessary. But, cut from the full tapestry, it unravels in our hands.<\/p>

When I struggled in my voice lessons, my teacher told me she understood my mistake. I was trying to sing the resolution note too soon, \u201cBut Sondheim isn\u2019t giving it to you yet.\u201d I had to live in the tension a little longer, reaching for the notes that didn\u2019t suit my design, if I wanted to be a channel of that chill-inducing beauty.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Leah Libresco Sargeant<\/strong> is the author of\u00a0<\/em>Arriving at Amen<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Building the Benedict Option<\/a>. She runs two substacks, one a\u00a0Tiny Book Club<\/a>, the other\u00a0a place to discuss alternative feminisms<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>

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Listening for America<\/strong> was a finalist for The Marfield Prize. It was published by Liveright<\/span> on November 5, 2019. You can buy a copy on their website here<\/a>. <\/em>
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Along with a greater appreciation for the intricacies of musical theater, Listening for America has something to teach about our need for each other. 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