Winds Howling

I’ve listened to this one three times now: first on a walk to a park, second while waiting for a flight home in Phoenix, and third for good measure on the way to McDonald’s. I’m confident in saying this one doesn’t do much for me. Each time it was the version by the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra & Adam Fischer.

The only movement I really liked was the first one, ‘Allegro molto,’ which had a strong, ear-catching start and kept up the energy throughout, doing a good job of switching things up just as I started to wonder if it was losing steam.

The second movement (‘Menuet and trio’) was admittedly interesting. I liked how it conveyed a strutting confidence, almost like a march, with a big pounding timpani, while also having undertones of a nice and pleasant minuet. According to musicologist James Webster, this is a rarity among Haydn’s early symphonies for having trumpets and timpani attested to by early, reliable sources. It also had a particularly dramatic switch to quiet mode around a minute in. But there was something weird about this recording — what is that noise? A repetitive hissing or whooshing sound, like somebody with a stuffy nose is sitting next to the mic. Next!!

Haydn started to lose me around the third movement (‘Adagio ma non troppo’), but I did end up having a nice moment with it on my walk to Lakeside Island Park. I caught sight of the lake just as I got to this movement, and it seemed perfectly suited to watching the ducks peacefully swimming in the still water.

The magic didn’t stick though; when I listened again in Phoenix, this movement had reverted back to its old, slightly dull self.

Another ‘Presto’ for the grand finale. It woke me back up a little bit but was otherwise only notable for some looooong horn notes — almost sounded like a National Weather Service alert tone.

I didn’t hate this one and didn’t like it much either. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

Version listened to: Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra & Adam Fischer
Length: 15:15
Next up: Symphony No. 37

There’s a new mural being painted in Sterling Heights. Local artist Wendy Popko is putting it on the back of an indoor pickleball facility set to open this summer, formerly the site of an F&M drug store and then a Spirit Halloween.

The mural is mainly visible to people inside cars on nearby Brougham Road. The immediate area around the mural consists of a large grass field and some brand new apartments, still wrapping construction.

Sterling Heights is one of the anchor cities of Detroit suburbia, but, large and populated as it is, I think it’s little more than lines on a map in most people’s imagination. The city has been trying hard for a few years to manufacture a more distinctive identity for itself, starting with a large circular sculpture along a major road that people instantly nicknamed “the Golden Butthole.”

Popko has done two murals for the city before, one on the side of an Italian deli/cafe and one on the side of a gas station outside the Sterling Heights Community Center. She apparently also did the painted steps outside the courthouse in Mount Clemens that I liked so much.

Sterling Heights bought this building and is converting it into a pickleball center using $9.7 million from a big millage it passed in 2024. They put out an open call for artists to paint a mural on its north wall back in March, and it was Popko’s submission that got greenlit by the Arts Commission and an upper cadre of city officials.

This is the design she submitted:

The city describes it as a “postcard-style mural” inspired by similar murals “in communities across the country,” which “celebrate community pride and landmarks while creating a welcoming and photo-friendly destination.”

From left to right, here’s what I’m seeing inside the letters. It’s a mixture of general feel-good stuff and what count for landmarks in this relatively anonymous city — all of them built within the last 10 years. All but one of them stem from the recent rejuvenation of Dodge Park, which lies nearly three miles to the north of this mural. Notably, no Golden Butthole is to be found in this celebration of local landmarks. [Update: I missed a few things here, so make sure to also read this post.]

A new little park has been proposed for Clinton Township, just a couple miles down the road from me. Called “Unity Park,” it’s supposed to be something that heals a “disconnect” in the community and brings people together, according to the developer.

But what “disconnect” are we healing, exactly?

The Columbus Day vs. Indigenous Peoples Day argument.

And how is the park going to bring these two sides together?

With a big sculpture and historical placards commemorating explorers who “discovered” various lands around the world, of course!

The park seems well-intentioned enough, but I had to laugh at that.

It’s being proposed by the Moceri family, big-time developers and home-builders in this area stretching back several generations. Their inspiration to honor the world’s explorers has its origin in a particularly feisty 2022 meeting of the Clinton Township Board of Trustees, where the hot controversy was the board’s decision to rename Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day on its calendar. Italian Americans make up about one-fifth of Clinton Township’s population, according to our local newspaper, and more than a dozen of them showed up and spoke for nearly an hour in defense of Columbus Day, punctuated by frequent bouts of clapping (including a disgraceful standing ovation from then-township supervisor Bob Cannon, who was promptly and correctly reprimanded by the trustee seated next to him). The speakers included Dominic J. Moceri, a current elder of the building family, who explained why the issue was “very personal” to him.

My father celebrated his last birthday on Columbus Day. … Our whole family went to the state capitol to receive the Columbus Day award for the entire family. … Probably 65% to 70% of the households constructed in Clinton Township, of which we reside in, were built by my direct relatives. … But it’s not about our family. It’s about everybody. It’s about everybody that’s come to this country, not just Italians, everybody that’s immigrated that found a new way and a new course.

The hullabaloo carried over into the next meeting, where the board voted down a proposal to mark all of October as Italian American Heritage Month, then unanimously agreed to reinstate Columbus Day on the second Monday in October and put Indigenous Peoples Day on Aug. 9. The Italian Tribune, a more-than-100-year-old Italian newspaper based in Detroit, got a photo of Moceri kissing another attendee on the cheek in celebration.

It was earlier during this meeting that Moceri announced a “gift” his family would give the community. Instead of going through with already-approved housing units on a strange little parcel next to the Italian American Cultural Society, they would build Unity Park, “a place to celebrate the collective traditions of indigenous peoples and all immigrants from around the globe in the spirit of one people.”

Here’s the originally proposed logo for this shrine to unity:

Lakeside Mall closed two years ago. When will it finally be demolished so that work can begin on the shiny new pedestrian-friendly Lakeside City Center?

“We are getting right toward the finish line here,” Sterling Heights Mayor Michael C. Taylor said at a recent City Council meeting. “I’m still optimistic that we can see some demolition work happening here in 2026, but maybe that’s overly optimistic.”

He explained some of the remaining red tape.

“At the last meeting we voted on the Brownfield plan, which is now going to go to the State of Michigan to vote, I believe June 23,” he said. “Once that is approved by the State of Michigan, things can really start taking off.”

The mayor said that the vote City Council took on May 19 — to establish a “corridor improvement authority” for an area next to the mall — was “hopefully one of the last procedural votes that the city will have to take” related to the redevelopment.

“This is really starting to come together, and I want the public to know that,” he said. “We are very, very close to making major progress on Lakeside Mall.”

A “controversial” former city councilor, Paul Smith, stepped up to the mic to lambast the city for investing in what he called a “hopelessly disastrous idea.”

“Lakeside is a black hole money pit that will absorb all the money you dump into it,” he said. “We got this Miami Vice outfit that nobody really knows who they are, but one of these years they’re gonna borrow some money and get going on it. These abandoned malls, they’re all over the country. … Nobody’s getting any place with this stuff.”

Here the mall stood on Friday, 711 days after its closure.

I decided to switch it up for this one. Since I’ve listened to a few of the Christopher Hogwood recordings in a row now, I listened to the version by Salzburg Chamber Orchestra & Alexander von Pitamic. But I was less enchanted with that sound vs. the average Hogwood, and I initially rated this symphony 1.5 stars out of 5. I figured I had to at least check a different recording, so I switched back to the ones I started this series off with, by Philharmonia Hungarica & Antal Dorati.

It was a bit better — slightly peppier and more dynamic, maybe. I even didn’t really mind the harpsichord, the thing that had sent me scurrying to the Hogwood recordings in the first place. I think the harpsichord was a bit more restrained here than it had been back in Symphony No. 1. I bumped the star rating up slightly, but listening to a second version didn’t completely change my mind about this symphony.

The first movement (‘Allegro molto’) was really the only one I liked, and it still had issues. Each individual section sounds good to me, and I like hearing them revolve in sequence. I’ve found myself humming some of them over the past couple days. You can hear some “Canon in D” in there, and I pick up strains of the “Gauntlet” theme song at certain moments. But there comes a point, after only a minute or two, when I’ve heard enough. It’s repetitive and too long by at least a third.

The second movement (‘Andante siciliano’) fully loses me — not much going on here at all. My ears pricked up for a couple things in the Dorati recording that they hadn’t in the von Pitamic recording — strings ominously plucking in the background, and the way it all occasionally trickles away into silence before reviving itself. But these were just glimmers of interest.

The third movement “Presto” finale was maybe the worst of all the presto finales so far. Hardly anything happened that I took note of. The Dorati recordings didn’t really improve much on this one.

My final rating is 2 stars out of 5.

Versions listened to: Salzburg Chamber Orchestra & Alexander Pitamic; Philharmonia Hungarica & Antal Dorati
Length: 14:13
Next up: Symphony No. 32

I first listened through this one on June 6, but it was only today that I got around to fleshing my notes into paragraphs, so I took another listen.

The main activity in the first movement (‘Andante moderato’) is alternation between cute, pokey melodies and big, dramatic, Beethoveny moments. It was OK, but by minute 5, I was done — felt like I’d heard it repeat one too many times.

The second movement (‘Allegro molto’) was one of the best of all the symphonies so far. The horn section is the star — they’re mostly in the background doing lots of quick, rhythmic pulses, as well as punctuating most of the strings throughout. This movement keeps up a pretty good energy — it reminds me of people hurrying to pack for a trip. Now and again it briefly shifts into a slightly darker mode for a cheeky little passage that sounds like something out of a musical. This one’s just fun to listen to.

The thing I noticed most about the third movement (‘Tempo di minuetto’) was that it occasionally sank to a particularly drama-laden atmosphere, a bit thicker than your average minor-key shift (eg, around 1:20). This section occasionally lifts itself back into bright tones and then sinks back down, like sunshine poking through the clouds. But I can’t honestly say this made much of an impression overall.

I rate this symphony 2.5 stars out of 5 — an OK beginning, an exceptional middle section and a passable finish.

Version listened to: Hogwood
Length: 14:54
Next up: Symphony No. 27