If it hadn’t been for Yo Yo it would have been a no no.  Nina (not Ananiashvili) and I returned to Lincoln Center on Tuesday for a concert by Yo Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble.  Yo Yo is famous for his cello, and little did I know but the Silk Road Ensemble are his “friends” from “around the globe” who mostly hail from places en route from the Caucasus to Korea, hence their collective moniker.

Taking to the stage, Yo Yo Ma discussed the Tanglewood origins of the ensemble, charming the audience with his superior smile and well-tailored suit.  He repeatedly referred to the other members as “friends”, with such redundant obviousness of emphasis on this word that I began to suspect it served him as a euphemism for something far more sinister that lays behind his enlightened demeanor.

Then the ensemble began the first piece of the Silk Road Suite, “Wandering Winds”, a “musical conversation” among Korea’s Dong-won Kim on jang-go , China’s Wu Tong on bawu, Japan’s Kojiro Umezaki on shakuhachi, with Yo Yo’s cello playing backup riffs to a mildly Persian theme reinforced by his friends jamming on their kim chi teriyaki instruments: Kayhan Kalhor on kamancheh, Wu Man on pipa, with even a cursory Indian, Sandeep Das, thrown in on tabla, among others less recognizable.

The rhythm was just noodlingly Persian enough to allow for monotonous nodding of the head while sitting. And so the night went on, with expert musicians masters in their respective genres, performing a lowest-common denominator style of pan-Asian groove music time and again.  A pat on my shoulder from a Chinese girl behind me warned that a trickle of an amber-hued liquid was making its way down the slightly slanted makeshift amphitheater towards my bag.

The rest of the compositions that evening flowed in much the same way, with the understanding among friends clearly visible in the performers’ slow grins and gentle gestures of respect for one another. Conversations with foreigners are always limiting, but the musicians were obviously enjoying themselves, high on the promise of a world of love, the prospect of future endorsements on Wheaties boxes in 13 different languages, and their totally unexpected mutual admiration.  And the audience’s bladders were mostly under control despite the collection of an apt yet abberated puddle under my seat, which continued to pick up new and richer hues as it coalesced.

From the dozens of shades of faces in the ensemble, there were only two stand-out performers:  Wu Man, who performed “White Snow in the Sunny Spring”, a classic pipa solo; and Alim Qasimov, a bona-fide “Living National Treasure” from Azerbaijan, who sang two intensely semi-Azerbaijani pop pieces with his handsome wild-eyed daughter, Fargana Qasimova.

Yo Yo Ma is clearly using his fame to expose artists unknown in the western world.  I suppose serious compositions would just obstruct the flow.

Prior to our viewing of the American Symphony Orchestra’s performance, “Persecution and Hope: Masterworks of Conscience“, Nina and I decided upon a hamburger at PJ Clarke’s across the street from Lincoln Center.  We had in times immemorable sampled the fare at PJ Clarke’s other location in Midtown East and trusted that, given the dearth of remotely palatable places in the near vicinity, we could count on at least a decent hamburger from this mid-scale pub, the kind of place where, at worst, the food is predictably adequate.

As lovers of a good hamburger must, and as a negligent blogger should, we arrived several hours before the performance in order to allow ample time for analysis of the impending hamburger consumption along two axes: immediate flavor impact, and gustation variation over time.  Music-lovers will clearly see the relation between hamburger analysis and earlier notes on the harmony/melody duality of music.

For a hamburger, like a piece of western music, is a multi-faceted thing, ill-treated if considered only in terms of its immediate impact upon one’s sensory receptors.  Variation over time is critical to a modern conception of beauty, as evidenced no more clearly than in the Baptist church, where even gays are beautiful, so long as they’re trying, over time, to change their aberrant ways.  I guess this means that a Baptist homosexual, at any given moment, is like a single dissonant chord.  Put a bunch of dissonant chords together, and you get jazz.

Brussel Sprouts with Bacon at PJ Clarke's

Now I have no idea where that analogy was going, but it definitely was not the reason why I ordered brussel sprouts and fries with the hamburger.  I think that was more a result of the searching eyes of the tall, fresh, young waiter, clearly a by-product of the Mid-West’s dairy industry.  His name was James or Brad or something, and there was no possibility of not ordering a draught beer, brussel sprouts, and fries with the hamburger so long as this blonde Übermensch was asking piercing questions, like, “What will you be ordering today?” and calling me “buddy” as I sat, at least ten years his elder, in my navy blue suit at a picnic tablecloth covered table with my exotic-looking date in full opera getup.

I remembered what I had liked about PJ Clarke’s.  It’s the sort of place where you feel democratized but not compromised.  When Brad brought over the romantic candle to place on our picnic tablecloth, I thanked him, gesturing in Nina’s direction with the words, “Oh, thanks, that’ll do the trick.”  Beautiful Brad, exotic Nina, and I had a good chuckle, and I started to get buzzed.

The hamburgers, draught beer, and brussel sprouts arrived and were of high quality and good.  God, there’s nothing like a brussel sprout to get the beer down.

The hamburger and all the condiments were very good.  If it weren’t for the slightly flavorless beef, I would easily call it a better burger than the Corner Bistro burger.  But flavorless beef being flavorless beef, this hamburger was not better.  I consider that to be a shame because I far prefer the pretentiously casual ambience at PJ Clarke’s to the grimy honest informality of the Corner Bistro.

PJ Clarke's Hamburger with Bacon, Mushrooms, and Swiss Cheese

The fries were as can be expected, and that was exactly what I’d expected.  The pickle on the side was fully sour, which perfectly accompanied the task at hand, despite my usual outspoken preference for its half sour brethren.  Did I mention that the brussel sprouts were cooked to perfection as was the bacon?  The bun, while nondescript, had been lightly toasted on the inside and proved to be a useful force multiplier for handling the entire deliciously oversized package into my mouth.

By the time the mid-level porcelain plates were barren, it was time for the pre-concert lecture by the appreciably dry humoured composer, Richard Wilson.  The lecture proved to be much more engaging than the actual mid-20th century compositions by Luigi Dallapiccola which was thankfully only tangentially its topic.

Across the street, in Alice Tully Hall, Wilson explained the basic concept behind the 12-tone composition technique, something which is so simple, yet so oft misunderstood.  While western classical music has traditionally been “in key”, or tonal, 12-tone compositions are generally not.

Twelve-tone composers pick a theme of 12 non-repeating notes, called a tone row, and use variations upon that theme as a replacement for the affordances that tonality usually offers.  In other words, 12-tone compositions find other ways to make the music interesting over time than the simple techniques of leading notes and cirlcle-of-fifths standard harmonies.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t find atonal music interesting at all.  And Wilson wryly remarked that it may have been better for posterity if Arnold Shoenberg had kept the details of this 12-tone music composition technique in the closet, thus leaving the audience’s focus on the music, not the technique.  How does the music make you feel?

By this point, the hamburger and brussel sprouts had established a solid foundation in my stomach, and judging by my feelings of agility, both mental and physical, the level of quality in the overarching 12-tone hamburger experience was feeling pretty high.  For music, like hamburgers, as I think I’ve mentioned, should be judged along both axes: immediate impact, and variation over time.

It is my firm belief that Luigi Dallapiccola’s operas are not especially interesting in either story or music, but that Richard Wilson is an engaging didact.  The hamburger was great, but the meat could use more flavor.

By the end of the hour, Nina, a girl with no prior musical or culinary instruction, understood perfectly the use of the 12-tone atonal system in contemporary composition and the importance of high quality ingredients.