Josep Vicent and the ADDA Orchestra programme one of the twentieth century’s mayor works and a concerto by Campogrande featuring Meta4

 

The challenge of reviewing a performance of a work that one is deeply fond of is to remain objective. Well, I have already failed to be so. I first came across the Symphony No. 4, The Inextinguishable by Carl Nielsen when I was in my late teens. I have been listening to it regularly since then, so I must have heard it several hundred times. One might have thought that over the years its effect would grow less intense, its originality might have blurred, its surprise diminished. Not so.

Live performances of the work – except on radio – have been rare. It must be forty years since I last heard it in the concert hall. In a near lifetime of concert going, I have never heard the composer’s first or second symphony in concert. I have heard the Espansiva once, the fourth maybe twice and the fifth maybe four times. The enigmatic sixth, Sinfonia Semplice, once only. At home, I regularly listen to recordings, but Nielsen in the concert hall is something of a rarity.

Thank you, thus, to Josep Vicent and the ADDA Orchestra for programming the work and performing it with such commitment. For me. It was the highlight of the season and did not disappoint.

Written in 1916 and containing the composer’s references to The First World War, The Inextinguishable is a revolutionary work despite being musically conservative and sharing with Nielsen’s other works a considerable debt to Johannes Brahms. Carl Nielsen became one of music’s most original voices and it is in this symphony that we hear some of his most profound musical statements.

The fourth, for instance, has four conventional movements. But they are played without a break. Nielsen developed the idea of “progressive keys” in which music starts in one key and ends in another, thus suggesting in the listener’s ear an idea of “progress”. In the case of the fourth symphony, this is enhanced by playing the movements without breaks. And within those movements the musical material is very varied. Other composers might have used the progression of keys for entirely musical reasons, but in Nielsen there is this added layer of a journey for the listener. And the effect is subtle. Carl Nielsen never wanted to lead his audience by the nose through a “programme”. The effect is personal, even Romantic, and utterly convincing.

Two timpanis go to war occasionally in this work, and the orchestra manages to overcome their anger by being level-headed and positive, thus reflecting the composer’s fundamental optimism. In the fourth symphony, this optimism still triumphs, whereas in the fifth symphony, this optimism still comes through in the end but for all of forty minutes, the music is in minor keys, only finding its way to a major key in the closing coda. But by the time Carl Nielsen wrote the sixth symphony, cynicism had got the better of his optimistic spirit, and that is why the work remains problematic.

But still in the fourth Symphony, the compositional style is late Romanticism. It is still the individual that matters, though Nilsson is modern enough to frame the experience in current events in the external world. He is musically conservative enough to use fugues, but they bite with sharp edges, their counterpoint being jagged and modernistic. But within this conservative approach to composition, the composer manages to present material that is succinct, to the point and always subservient to an overall idea. The music is almost Neo-Classical despite being written before the term was invented!

But above all, there is energy in this music. The energy is “life energy”, which the composer thought would shine through current difficulties and result in positive outcomes. As a symphonist, the conservative Carl Nielsen became overall a thoroughly modern individual, ultimately wearied by the life he so desperately tried to affirm. How modern is that?

In the first half of the concert, we heard Josep Vicent’s selection of Manuel de Fallas’s Three Cornered Hart and Liberi Tutti, Nicola Campogrande’s Concerto for String Quartet, and Orchestra. The ADDA audience has heard the former work regularly and it never fails to rouse. The latter work featured the now superstars of Meta4, who performed brilliantly, if at the same time a little anonymously. Personally, I found the work always interesting, but eventually disappointing. Its generally minimalist style seemed to concentrate on creating a sheen of sound which was in itself convincing but also seemed to envelop the soloists in an overall orchestral sound which rather hid their significant and substantial contribution. The problem for me was not in the performance but in the handling of the musical material.

Overall, I found the Nielsen still much more modern, despite its being written over a century ago.

Escandinavia – ADDA hosts Joan Enric Lluna and Joana Carneiro in Grundman, Bach and Schumann

 

The concert was subtitled “Escandinavia”, a label that some of the audience found a little confusing. But a program note clarified that the Symphony No. 2 of Robert Schumann is also often called Escandinavia as a nickname. Despite being premiered in Dresden in 1845, it was also dedicated to King Oscar of Norway and Sweden – hence the nickname.

Baffling labels aside, there was nothing in this program to challenge a concert-going audience, apart from possibly a world premiere of a piece by locally resident composer, Jorge Grundman. The History of a Smile for clarinet and orchestra was listed as his opus 96, no less. The orchestra in question turned out to be strings and a percussion section of a vibraphone and a marimba. These latter instruments played a significant part in creating a soundscape for the work, while, if anything, the full complement of strings was, if anything, underused.

But this is essentially a show piece for solo clarinet, though it would be stretching things to say it was a concerto. Minimalist structures are heard here, with many figures relying on minor scales or modes around a bass pedal. The overall effect is perhaps rather monotonous, but, given the minimalist inspiration, that is part of the point. Joan Enric Lluna’s playing was superb, as were the two encores he offered, both his own compositions and forming two parts of his Homenaje á Maestro Rodrigo.

Joana Carneiro’s conducting of this opening work was itself astounding in that she prompted every detail of the score. It came, therefore, as no surprise to read that she often specialises in contemporary music. When she moved onto Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, she was equally precise with music that demands above all precision. Now this is every well-known music, especially the second movement, the Air, which is often heard as a standalone piece. The ADDA Orchestra’s playing, especially that of the trumpet, was breathtaking.

And in the second half we heard a Romantic symphony that epitomises the mid-nineteenth century approach to music. It is often levied as a criticism against minimalism that the music is all process, not product. Anyone thinking that this is a characteristic of modern music should listen to the Symphony No. 2 of Robert Schumann, where the composer’s assumptions of form, modulation and orchestration are more than evident. In the end, it is a satisfying work, but, for all Schumann’s reputation for unpredictability, this particular concertgoer tends to find his approach formulaic. It’s a personal opinion.

The orchestral playing, the conducting, and the solo playing were all superb. The program also held together beautifully and as a whole it was also superb.

L’Écume des Jours by Edison Denisov from Lille Opera on OperaVision

 

I do not usually review anything outside of direct experience. Theatre, opera, and concerts, yes, because they are experienced at firsthand. I make an exception for books, because reading is so personal that each different reader may find a different world within pages visited by others. Film, recordings and television I regard as packaged and, though I might record what I have seen, I do not write reviews. There are exceptions, notably the operas Eros and Psyche by Rosicky and Von Einem’s Der Prozess - The Trial, both of which were live performances made available by the wonderful work of OperaVision. The exception has come around again, this time in the form of Denisov’s L’Écume des Jours, an opera also broadcast by OperaVision.

Premiered in 1986, Opera de Lille recently presented the work, and it is available on the OperaVision website until September 2026. I encourage opera lovers everywhere to try it, and anyone interested in contemporary music should make a make a point of listening, perhaps on several occasions.

Edison Denisov’s music does not have many performances in the concert halls of western Europe and North America. Personally, I can see a straight line of influence through the twentieth century – the Soviet century – starting with Shostakovich, continuing through Schnittke and terminating with Denisov. Seen together, the work of these three composers seems to illustrate the history and fate of the Soviet Union from its creation to its demise. Right from the Symphony No1 of Dmitri Shostakovich, with its almost confident modernity anticipating the Constructivism in art that would follow, through to the disparate multiplicity of style and form that characterizes Denisov’s music, there was generally an increasing loss of confidence in the ideal and increasing resort to cynicism on behalf of the composers in order to express what they were feeling.

Listen, for instance, to each composer’s first symphony, and compare them. As recently mentioned, Shostakovich was generally upbeat, though as a composer he was never particularly optimistic. Later, always prone to pastiche, in his case circus, music and jazz often invade the gloom, the first symphony limits itself to what might be achieved by a young genius. It is forward looking, if not quite confident.

Contrast that with the first symphony of Arnold Schnittke. The vision is equally grand, but now there is evidence of cynicism, some use of the random, inclusion of electronics and frequent use of popular forms, though these are generally integrated and interwoven. There is less confidence than in Shostakovich and more cynicism, but the overall impression is that the individual can still make a contribution, though the outlook is bleak.

In Denisov’s first symphony, equally grand in vision as the two already mentioned, it seems that recognizable forms and shapes have been subsumed into confusion, a thoroughly competent confusion where the composer can express what he wishes but cannot settle mentally into a particular style or groove. Everything is disparate – at least on the surface. The concerns of previous generations of composers are still there are still here, but they are packaged together, as if the composer cannot decide what should take precedence. The despair seems here closer to the surface, the energy of cynicism that both Shostakovich and Schnittke is here dissipated to despair. It sounds as if Edison Denisov lacks the commitment to espouse as a particular style and consciously dithered the sound.

And said we come to L’Écume des Jours in the production by Opera Lille. Based on Boris Vian’s surrealist novel Froth On The Daydream, we meet Chloë, who is clearly not well. She turns to Isis, her friend and lover, and pleads for one last chance to meet a boy and be happy. Such a boy appears in the shape of Colin. Chloë and Colin hit it off, though Chloë has to disguise herself in a pink dress and wear a wig to hide the fact that she that her treatment has caused her to lose her hair. Chloë is in fact suffering from water lily in the lung and her treatment is to be surrounded with flowers.

Serious surreal encounters ensue, which involve mice, people emitting smoke, a doctor who prepares a treatment by severing his own tongue and piercing his own arm, a character who cuts off his arm with a knife, and various other visual treats.

Initially, the flights of fancy are vaguely shocking and part humorous, but as the opera progresses, they become darker and more threatening. A real crucified Christ appears regularly, accompanied by his own choir, and a character called Alise asserts her substantial presence on the proceedings.

The opera’s denouement is a lethal injection for Chloë to end her suffering, and we are left at the end with Isis, Chloë and Colin reclining on a hospital bed, with Chloë dying But with Isis placed centrally, we realise that she is suffering the most. The opera seems to be saying that the real suffering is felt by those who experience bereavement, not death.

Denisov’s music is perfect for the scenario. It comes and goes, makes its point, then disappears. When popular forms appear, they threaten rather than or relieve. Eventually, these characters are tossed around by events like rudderless boats in a storm. They are part of and party to the events, but they are never in control. Chloë is dying, Colin, to some extent, exists only because Chloë wished him to. It is Isis, the person in the middle of the love triangle who suffers, and it is she who is alive and will continue to live. The shortest straw, perhaps.

L’Écume des Jours is a rarity. Opera lovers should give it a go. Do not be daunted by the apparent disconnectedness of most of the music. After two hours, it will all make sense in the sense that it remains nonsense. The above is what I took from the experience in a single sitting. There will be more.

Bassem Akiki conducts and the direction of Anna Smolar is amazing.  Josefin Feiler, Cameron Becker, Katia Ledoux, Elmar Gilbertsson, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Natasha Te Rupe Wilson, Robin Neck, Maurel Endong, Matthieu Lécroart have important parts in the cast. Do experience L’Écume des Jours on OperaVision.

Martha Argerich, Charles Dutoit and the Orchestra Della Svizzera Italiana present a star-studded concert in ADDA, Alicante

 

Star billing often does not live up to audience expectations. Such events tend to attract attendees who are more interested in seeing a star name than in listening to what that performer might be able to do. There was not one minute like that in the entire evening last night in ADDA, Alicante, where we were privileged to hear music made by Martha Argerich and Charles Dutoit.

They are both getting on in years. Martha Argerich is 84 and Charles Dutoit 90, but no one who listened to the music they made would have had any inkling of their advancing years, so fresh and eager were both in their music making.

 Martha Argerich’s name would grace any concert in any auditorium. Here she played the first concerto of Beethoven, the same work that opened her concerto-performing career just 76 years ago. It is hard when listening to this music to imagine that it was written before 1800. This is fresh, sophisticated, jolly, and serious at the same time, and displays the kind of integration between the orchestra and soloist that was to shape and so completely change the form so completely from the elegance and decoration of the eighteenth-century model.

Though it was not Beethoven’s first attempt at the form - we know that he was in intensely self-critical - it has a freshness and directness that belies its complexity. Here Beethoven wanders wide from the declared C major and makes abrupt transitions, both rhythmic and harmonic. This can make a performance of the work seem disconnected, but not, of course, in the hands of Martha Argerich, who first recorded the work over 40 years ago.

The followed an encore. Scarlatti’s Sonata K1 41 is a piece that Martha Argerich plays regularly as an encore. What her right hand has to do in this piece is both fast and intricate. But the effect is above our musical: there is no show here, only quality.

The orchestra and Charles Dutoit had started the evening with a performance of Ravel’s Mother Goose. Now Ravel’s music is always surprising. Here, Charles Dutoit chose slow tempi that stressed both of the beauty of the phrases and the detail of the orchestration. Nothing in music exists, of course, if the musicians are not up to the task. In this concert, the Orchestra Della Svizzera Italiana was not only up to the task, their playing and integration as an ensemble sculpted every phrase to perfection.

In the second half, Charles Dutoit directed the Orchestra Della Svizzera Italiana in the fourth symphony of Mendelson, the Italian. At 90 years of age, Charles Dutoit keeps gestures to a minimum, but what he gets from his players is superb. And it was especially joyful for the audience to witness how much the players were enjoying the experience, a response, which kept the music, both lyrical and vibrant. Charles Dutoit announced that the encore would be a piece that was “very well known”, and it was. Perfection.

Handel's Giulio Cesare In Egitto in Valencia is a triumph for all concerned, singers, designers, directors, technicians and especially musicians

 

Giulio Cesare In Egitto is an opera by Handel dating from approximately 1724. The word “approximately” must also be applied to the operas of George Frederick Handel because he was nothing if not a pragmatist. He regularly rewrote or edited passages to accommodate the particular skills or shortcomings of whatever singers he had at his disposal. For a composer who wrote over forty Italian operas, some of them almost household names, we would expect that opportunities to hear his work in major houses are frequent. Though I personally have not sought performances of the composer’s work, I admit that the last time I heard a performance of one of the operas was forty years ago in London when the English National Opera did Xerxes. I recall that I attended two performances, because it was a superb production. So it was with some misgivings that I approached this production in Valencia of Giulio Cesare In Egitto. My musical tastes have changed over the years and I was not sure that the experience would measure up to expectations -  or perhaps the real fear was that it would!

The reluctance was not musical. Handel’s melodic gift is one of the most dependable things in European music. Basically, I worried that a three-and-a-half-hour baroque opera would not sustain my interest in a hall like Les Arts, Valencia, where the presence of a baroque orchestra might just be lost in the sheer size of the place. I need not have worried. A seat in row five meant that everything was perfectly audible, though I imagine that some passages of this production might have been less than audible in the gods.

And speaking of gods, they were remarkably absent in this libretto. Though the sets regularly featured pyramids and ibises, there were a few references to any religious differences that might have existed between Egypt and Rome. Indeed, the setting was the Ptolemaic period, so indeed there may have been not have been many differences, at least as far as emperors and generals were concerned.

At the start, Caesar is victorious. Tolomeo, ruler of Egypt, has had Pompeo, the opposing general in the recent battle, beheaded, and, thinking the trophy of the head would please Caesar, he has his henchman, Achilla, present it to Caesar. To perform the task, Achilla is dressed like a cross between a jester and an ogre. Caesar is revolted, as is Cordelia, Pompeo’s wife and Sesto, his son, who vows to avenge the death of his father. In this production Sesto’s youth is emphasised by his inability to lift the sword that he wields as a threat.

Cleopatra, not satisfied with playing second fiddle to her brother, then sets about a plot to remove him from the throne and bring Caesar along with her, thus uniting power and cementing her position. Much of the opera’s plot revolves around the way Cleopatra uses her guile and looks to win Caesar over to her plan. It is essential, therefore, that Cleopatra can not only sing, she needs to act supremely well, without once hamming it up.

One of the major successes of this imaginative production was to use two Cleopatras, one of whom sang. Cleopatra, the seductress, wore a long frilly dress, while Cleopatra the schemer wore a business suit. The two Cleopatras were made up to appear very similar and swapped clothes here and there, depending on what the music was conveying. In a moment of absolute magic, Cleopatra, as an inconsequential servant, seduces a snoozing Caesar. But he is on stage, while Cleopatra sings from within the audience, dressed as the seductress. At the scenes denouement, the second Cleopatra appears on stage to stand in triumph over Caesar, but she, the non-singing character, is dressed as the schemer. Ultimate conquest is achieved. Both the drama and the beauty this scene conveyed was one of the production’s triumphs.

By the end, Pompeo’s death is avenged, Tolomeo gets his comeuppance and Cesar and Cleopatra are married to everyone’s delight, even the characters who also who have been recently killed.

Baroque opera is not renowned for either action or drama. Indeed in Giulio Cesare In Egitto, the norm is for one character to present an aria expressing their current emotional state and the dilemmas that they imagine. This focuses the attention of the audience on two things: musicality and production. Musicality underpins the credibility of the character and production contextualises their thoughts and makes sense of everything.

The musicality was masterfully executed by Mark Minkowski, who clearly has a genuine penchant for this form. The tempi he chose and especially the dynamics he employed were nothing less than masterful, and the Valencia Orchestra was not only up to the challenge, but the players also seemed to relish the opportunity to show off their prowess. The pianissimo passages in particular were riveting. Here, in this great theatre before an audience of more than thousand, a character with orchestral accompaniment was able to sing quietly and be heard by everyone. It made all the characters, above all, human and their expressed psychological dilemmas real. Only rarely have I heard a production of an opera where as much obvious planning has gone into integrating what we heard and saw. It is one thing to plan on another to execute, but the cast of Giulio Cesare In Egitto did it all. Everything, ultimately, had to make sense and it did!

And the production needs to be highlighted. It is hard to single out a particular aspect, so the triumvirate of director Vicent Boussard, designer Frank Philipp Schlossman and costume designer Christine Lacroix must all be mentioned, as indeed must the lighting of Andreas Grűter. All these elements came together in an utterly convincing whole that always integrated, never separated the audience from the meaning as interpreted by the characters on stage. It is rare to find such obvious harmony of purpose across all aspects of an opera production.

Visually, the staging used a mock screen, outlined in white and was therefore almost cinematic. Occasionally, a black panel would slide across the front to divide the stage in two. This was used to emphasize a particular character’s isolation. It also provided a stunning way to chang scene, with the lighting effects following the movement of the panel across the stage. Also innovative was the use of the moving panel to facilitate the entry and exit of protagonists. It all added up to a seamless and wholly credible production where each aspect complemented the whole and never intruded. This was a significant achievement. In addition, we had singers and musicians within the audience, a violinist on stage in a musical duel with Caesar and above all wonderful playing from the orchestra.

And I have not mentioned the singers! Marina Monzó as Cleopatra quite stole the show. Her singing was perfect for the role, and she also managed to portray the two roles of seductress and schemer perfectly. Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Caesar was also perfect, if at times a little less than audible if singing backstage. Caesar’s foray into the audience after Cleopatra’s seduction was pure magic. Sara Mingado’s Cordelia and Arianna Vendittelli as Sesto were in some respects cameo roles but nevertheless came across superbly as three-dimensional characters. Cameron Shahbazi’s Tolomeo, camp and gay in the extreme, was utterly convincing and Jen-Philippe McClish as Achilla and Bryan Sala as Curio were also superb. Achilla’s inconsistency and constant wavering were communicated superbly.

This was an utterly memorable visit to the opera, and an opportunity to revisit the world of baroque opera in the hands of Handel. It was memorable in every aspect, music, singing and staging, and I stress again that it was the integration of these elements that was so successful. I hope it is not forty years until the next Handel opera.

Two outstanding soloists in Mussorgsky and Khachaturian both give superb performances in concert to remember by the Slovak Philharmonic under Daniel Raiskin

 

One of the interesting things about regular concert going with a subscription is the visiting orchestra. Once in a while, a group from a country which is not on the usual map of music making in Western Europe is programmed to appear. Last night in ADDA, Alicante, for instance, we were privileged to hear the Slovak Philharmonic in a program of works that, for the most part, have not been performed frequently in Spain. What the Slovak Philharmonic did not bring, at least at first sight, was any music by a Slovak composer. On the bill were a Czech, two Russians and an Armenian, who during his lifetime would have perhaps preferred the label “Soviet”. And indeed alongside the Slovak Philharmonic was a Ukrainian conductor, Daniel Raiskin, a Croatian baritone, Marko Mimica, a Moldovan violinist, Alexandra Cununova, and Spanish chorus, so the experience was decidedly multi-national. We did hear Slovak music in the final encore, Slovakian Czardas in fact, and indeed some folk-inspired Moldavian music for solo violin. But amidst this apparently disparate evening what held this program together was the commitment of those involved to deliver fine music, and outstanding it proved to be.

We started with Dvořák’s Symphonic Variations Op78. This is Dvořák, it must be said, not at his most tuneful, but the compositional skill in constructing these largely quiet variations is immense. Variation form is often quite difficult for an audience to listen to, largely because by its nature it is episodic. The Slovak Philharmonic gave a superb performance which brought the piece together. I describe largely “quiet” music, but in the final fugue the composer goes to town on orchestral colours. It is a work worthy of exploration at length.

Then we heard Marko Mimica as baritone soloist in Shostakovich’s orchestral version of Mussorgky’s Songs and Dances of Death. Marko Mimica has a powerful but lyric baritone, and his voice is perfect for these songs where the soloist is very much to the fore. His dark tones penetrated every corner of the auditorium, even pianissimo, and his expression communicated meaning, despite the fact that the back projection of the words were unreadable for a good part of the audience.

The evening finished with the Polovtsian Dances of Borodin, a work, which always brings the house down, perhaps by virtue of the vibration created by the high volume of the sound that the composer demands. Again, the words sung by the chorus were generally unreadable on the back wall of the auditorium. The coordination between the chorus, the Coro Amici Musicae under the direction of Igor Tantos Sevillano, and the orchestra was superb.

Just after the interval, we heard Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto in the concert’s main work. The soloist was Alexandra Cununova, who played the piece with a prompt from the score, but no-one in the audience listening with closed eyes would have known. This is not the repertoire’s most played violin concerto, but on the evidence of this performance, it is a masterpiece and deserves a wider audience. The judgment is not offered without having listed to the work again after the concert.

Alexandra Cununova’s playing of the solo part was superb. The writing of the solo part was also superb. But what came across above all was the compositional skill of Aran Khachaturian. In this thirty-five-minute-concerto, there were regular orchestral tutti from a large ensemble which played at considerable volume, but every note of the solo part was audible, even to the fore. This is a concerto written by a master of orchestral writing.

The play of Alexandra Cununova was not only perfection: it went way beyond that. Despite the fact that she took prompts from a score, the playing seemed completely spontaneous and utterly committed. This was the kind of performance that will live forever in a concert-goer’s memory. It was a work in over fifty years of concert going that I have never heard performed before. I will seek it out in future and make sure to hear it again.

Alexandra Cununova finished with a piece by a Moldovan composer, inspired by folk music, and this work for solo violin complemented and contrasted perfectly with the rhythmic bravura of the concerto. What a performance!

Once upon a Time, I read the writing of Aldous Huxley with enthusiasm. I was a little younger then… More recently, I have tended to find his attitudes rather stuffy, and class-ridden, not embodying the fresh view of the world I once thought he held. Brave New World was not representative and, in my youth, I perhaps mis-read its intentions. A television adaptation of Eyeless In Gaza at the end of the 1960s prompted further exploration. Recently, I found The Art Of Seeing worth avoiding. So it was with mixed expectations that I started Mortal Coils, a work the author published in 1921

Its form is interesting. Aldous Huxley described its five separate sections as three short stories, a novelette and a play. In each of the pieces, there is a keen, if somewhat caricatured central character for whom some random event, some twist of fate provides an ironic punchline. For that reason, I will not review the stories in detail. What happens is crucial, and it tends to happen right at the end.

Throughout, Aldous Huxley seems to be mocking anyone who apparently takes him or herself, seriously. There is a keen eye for pretension, but, it has to be said, these tales of competition are won, more often than not, by the wily, not the showy.

The Gioconda Smile is the novelette. Miss Spence has the smile in question. She is thirtyish and a spinster. Mr. Hutton is a well-to-do friend with a hypochondriac wife, who needs to take her medicine.

Permutations Among The Nightingales is a play set in a hotel. Various society-type guests pirouette around themselves for attention. There is a lot of coming and going.

The Tillotson Banquet involves rather rich people with a decoration urge tracing a long-lost artist who has fallen on bad times. There might be a commission. In his nineties, and living in a basement among beetles, the old artist accepts the invitation to dine.

The Green Tunnels is it story about a group of visitors to Italy. They become obsessed with one another as well as with themselves. Both gestures and actions are mis-interpreted.

In Nuns At Luncheon, Huxley mocks the act of writing, itself, as a scribbler imagines how he might fictionalize a tale about a nun who falls from grace.

None of these has anything like a grand vision. These five pieces are like extended jokes with unexpected punch lines. They are stories, however, worth the telling, and certainly worth the reading.