One term

There have been 14 Presidents who have served exactly one term.  They were John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, James Polk, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Donald J. Trump (who has inexplicably been elected to another term which will likely be at least as disastrous as his first), and Joe Biden.  

I have no doubt that Joe Biden will be judged by future historians as among the greatest of these.

This is not based on sentiment, but on objective reality. None of the above listed one-termers inherited the disaster that Biden had to face. 

Lincoln faced a massive crisis when he took office, the collapse of the union and rise of the Confederacy.  He ended the Confederacy with the bloodiest war in our history, and he ended slavery.  He was elected to a second term, but was assassinated only six weeks into his second term.

Franklin Roosevelt took office at the depth of the Great Depression, and led the nation through a halting, uneven recovery.  Then he rose to the occasion and led the US to the brink of victory in World War II – tragically dying twelve weeks into his fourth term, and a mere three weeks before Germany surrendered.

Barack Obama inherited the worst economic downturn since the Great Recession.  His policies rescued two of the big three automakers and turned the economy around.  He also passed comprehensive health care reform, something which had eluded FDR, Harry Truman, and Bill Clinton.

Joe Biden faced not one, not two, but three crises when he took office: Pandemic, Recession, and Insurrection.  He slew them all.  That fight, along with the other battles and tragedies of his life, took a lot out of him.  Though it took some prodding, ultimately he showed the wisdom to pass the torch to a new generation – something which Franklin Roosevelt was unwilling to do. 

Joe Biden is a true public servant who will be fondly remembered by those of us who have actually studied American history.  

Americans would do well to heed the warnings 

President Biden made in his Farewell address.

French and American music with Denève and Banks at Severance

Guest conductor Stéphane Denève led The Cleveland Orchestra in a program of 20^th and 21^st Century music which highlighted the cross-pollination between the French and American musical scenes.

The concert began with Darius Milhaud’s ballet La création du monde (The Creation of the World), Op. 81, written after the composer traveled to the United States and encountered Harlem Jazz.  The work was written for a small ensemble, heavy on winds, brass, and percussion – with very few strings.  In six brief sections, the work evokes a variety of moods, including not merely jazz but a Cakewalk, and even a military march by Schubert. 

Saxophonist Steven Banks joined the Denève and the orchestra for A Kind of Trane (Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra) by Guillaume Connesson.  The work, in three movements, fuses not only jazz, but minimalism, techno, popular elements and brief moments that recall film noir scores.  Banks, using both soprano and alto saxophones, put forth a stunning virtuoso performance that captured each musical strand and mood – however fleeting.  Denève and the orchestra furnished more than an accompaniment, but a seamless collaboration so polished that it belied the fact that this week’s performances constituted the Cleveland premiere of the work.  The audience leapt to its collective feet at the work’s conclusion, and Banks performed Malotte’s “The Lord’s Prayer” as an encore.

 

Banks and Denève after the Concerto.

 Following intermission Denève returned to conduct the Suite from Francis Poulenc’s 1924 ballet “Les biches” (The Does).  It has long seemed to me that Poulenc was the early 20^th Century’s answer to Franz Josef Haydn – wit, surprise, and quicksilver moods concealing subtle depths.  Although the composer had not yet visited the United States when this ballet score was composed, there are still hints of America in the work – not least in the work’s central Rag-Mazurka which, despite the dance form implied, doesn’t sound the least bit Polish.  Astonishingly, this weekend marks the first time The Cleveland Orchestra has performed all but the first movement of the suite.

George Gershwin’s An American in Paris has become so popular over the near century since it was composed that too many performances tend to sound alike and routine.  This performance was anything but.  Denève brought a marked sense of rhythmic freedom which served as a reminder that Gershwin once described the work as a rhapsody.  Each section segued seamlessly into the next with lilting freedom – with the exception of the “Charleston” section which sounded appropriately lock-stepped. 

Tonight’s concert was a magnificent reminder that just as there is Fusion cuisine, so can there be music which fuses different styles including classical, jazz, and popular.  None of these styles suffer when mixed – rather they are enhanced.  In music, as in much of life, overweening puritanism is a dead end.