-- Liner Notes -- "tendenze per tre suonatori" op. 14, was written at the suggestion of Christoph Caskel, Aloys Kontarsky and Siegfried Palm at the 1970 Darmstadt Holiday Course. Its four parts contain the greatest possible variety of rime indications: series of demisemiquaver runs without barlines but with accents, which are intended to be played as fast as possible, various time signatures, passages timed by the second - especially pauses and held sounds -, alternating times and quasi-times in which the events take place in a definite order but only at approximate points in time. These various forms of time are not developed out of one another but are balanced against one another.
Hey all,
I wanted to get some of our more seasoned members to comment on the subject of making the transition from college composer, to professional composer.
I recently graduated, and am now out in the world. I have to say the transition has been a tough one. I went from an environment where I could literally get anything and everything played, and played extremely well, to a life totally disconnected from performers (well, close to anyway).
How have some of you coped with making that transition? I know many of you teach in Universities, but I also know that many of you don't. I'm searching for life as a professional and I'm stumbling along without a map. Anyone got directions?
It's Happening - North York Ontario Mirror Guardian, Canada - 3 hours ago CECILIA SINGERS, a chamber choir singing church music from Victorian to Messiaen, invites singers in all voice parts to audition. ...
Research Ensemble, Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh The Herald, UK - 1 hour ago ... and their choice of music, celebrating two birthdays, was exemplary. The birthdays were Nigel Osborne's 60th, which fell in June, and Elliott Carter's...
Pencil This In: Tuesday LAist, CA - 58 minutes ago Gloria Cheng offers selections from her newly-released CD of works by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky and Witold Lutoslawski. The program also features a ...
New York artist, Tara Donovan, is amongst the 2008 recipients of the MacArthur "genius" grant. This has to be the most utopian award I've ever heard of: it's open to practitioners in any field, has no application forms, an entirely anonymous nomination process, a thoroughly confidential selection process, no obligations, and half a million dollars paid in regular installments over five years.
I’ve been lucky - for just about my entire post-undergrad life, I’ve had access to decent alt-weeklies (in Cincinnati, we have CityBeat). I’d hate to see CL go.
Have another listen and contemplate the following clues. You can to go to your Zen place and wait for the answer to come to you or just invite your dad over for dinner. That strategy has worked for one guesser so far, so anything is possible.
r of religious music and thought the trombone was too evil an instrument for a righteous person to play.
The composer fell in love with an exotic dancer to whom he proposed via mail. [not really a clue but too great to leave out]
We’re having a bit of a to do up here in Northern North America in regards to our Prime Minister deciding that ordinary people don’t really care about the arts. The argument is tired but it does get pulled out every so often mostly when it’s convenient for a campaign. Miss Mussel hasn’t reported much on this rather bizarre set of events because she hasn’t had the time to sit down and read through everything first. Due diligence can be a pain.
The good news is, many other people have made it a priority and not many have expressed themselves as eloquently as our most immediately recognizable author, Margaret Atwood, did in Thursday’s Globe and Mail.
What sort of country do we want to live in? What sort of country do we already live in? What do we like? Who are we?
At present, we are a very creative country. For decades, we’ve been punching above our weight on the world stage - in writing, in popular music and in many other fields. Canada was once a cultural void on the world map, now it’s a force. In addition, the arts are a large segment of our economy: The Conference Board estimates Canada’s cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada’s GDP, in 2007. And, according to the Canada Council, in 2003-2004, the sector accounted for an “estimated 600,000 jobs (roughly the same as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas and utilities combined).”
But we’ve just been sent a signal by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he gives not a toss for these facts. Tuesday, he told us that some group called “ordinary people” didn’t care about something called “the arts.” His idea of “the arts” is a bunch of rich people gathering at galas whining about their grants. Well, I can count the number of moderately rich writers who live in Canada on the fingers of one hand: I’m one of them, and I’m no Warren Buffett.
I don’t whine about my grants because I don’t get any grants. I whine about other grants - grants for young people, that may help them to turn into me, and thus pay to the federal and provincial governments the kinds of taxes I pay, and cover off the salaries of such as Mr. Harper. In fact, less than 10 per cent of writers actually make a living by their writing, however modest that living may be. They have other jobs. But people write, and want to write, and pack into creative writing classes, because they love this activity – not because they think they’ll be millionaires.
Every single one of those people is an “ordinary person.” Mr. Harper’s idea of an ordinary person is that of an envious hater without a scrap of artistic talent or creativity or curiosity, and no appreciation for anything that’s attractive or beautiful. My idea of an ordinary person is quite different. Human beings are creative by nature. For millenniums we have been putting our creativity into our cultures - cultures with unique languages, architecture, religious ceremonies, dances, music, furnishings, textiles, clothing and special cuisines. “Ordinary people” pack into the cheap seats at concerts and fill theatres where operas are brought to them live. The total attendance for “the arts” in Canada in fact exceeds that for sports events. “The arts” are not a “niche interest.” They are part of being human.
Moreover, “ordinary people” are participants. They form book clubs and join classes of all kinds - painting, dancing, drawing, pottery, photography - for the sheer joy of it. They sing in choirs, church and other, and play in marching bands. Kids start garage bands and make their own videos and web art, and put their music on the Net, and draw their own graphic novels. “Ordinary people” have other outlets for their creativity, as well: Knitting and quilting have made comebacks; gardening is taken very seriously; the home woodworking shop is active. Add origami, costume design, egg decorating, flower arranging, and on and on … Canadians, it seems, like making things, and they like appreciating things that are made.
They show their appreciation by contributing. Canadians of all ages volunteer in vast numbers for local and city museums, for their art galleries and for countless cultural festivals - I think immediately of the Chinese New Year and the Caribana festival in Toronto, but there are so many others. Literary festivals have sprung up all over the country - volunteers set them up and provide the food, and “ordinary people” will drag their lawn chairs into a field - as in Nova Scotia’s Read by the Sea - in order to listen to writers both local and national read and discuss their work. Mr. Harper has signalled that as far as he is concerned, those millions of hours of volunteer activity are a waste of time. He holds them in contempt.
I suggest that considering the huge amount of energy we spend on creative activity, to be creative is “ordinary.” It is an age-long and normal human characteristic: All children are born creative. It’s the lack of any appreciation of these activities that is not ordinary. Mr. Harper has demonstrated that he has no knowledge of, or respect for, the capacities and interests of “ordinary people.” He’s the “niche interest.” Not us.
It’s been suggested that Mr. Harper’s disdain for the arts is not merely a result of ignorance or a tin ear - that it is “ideologically motivated.” Now, I wonder what could be meant by that? Mr. Harper has said quite rightly that people understand we ought to keep within a budget. But his own contribution to that budget has been to heave the Liberal-generated surplus overboard so we have nothing left for a rainy day, and now, in addition, he wants to jeopardize those 600,000 arts jobs and those billions of dollars they generate for Canadians.
What’s the idea here?
That arts jobs should not exist because artists are naughty and might not vote for Mr. Harper? That Canadians ought not to make money from the wicked arts, but only from virtuous oil? That artists don’t all live in one constituency, so who cares? Or is it that the majority of those arts jobs are located in Ontario and Quebec, and Mr. Harper is peeved at those provinces, and wants to increase his ongoing gutting of Ontario - $20-billion a year of Ontario taxpayers’ money going out, a dribble grudgingly allowed back in - and spank Quebec for being so disobedient as not to appreciate his magnificence? He likes punishing, so maybe the arts-squashing is part of that: Whack the Heartland.
Or is it even worse? Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they’re a mouthy lot and they don’t line up and salute very easily. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you, and so forth - the only kind of art you might need - but individual voices must be silenced, because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master’s Voice. Maybe that’s why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for our artists abroad. He didn’t like the competition for media space.
The Conservative caucus has already learned that lesson. Rumour has it that Mr. Harper’s idea of what sort of art you should hang on your wall was signalled by his removal of all pictures of previous Conservative prime ministers from their lobby room - including John A. and Dief the Chief - and their replacement by pictures of none other than Mr. Harper himself. History, it seems, is to begin with him.
In communist countries, this used to be called the Cult of Personality.
Mr. Harper is a guy who - rumour has it, again - tried to disband the student union in high school and then tried the same thing in college. Destiny is calling him, the way it called Qin Shi Huang, the Chinese emperor who burnt all records of the rulers before himself. It’s an impulse that’s been repeated many times since, the list is very long. Tear it down and level it flat, is the common motto. Then build a big statue of yourself. Now that would be Art!
On Monday and Tuesday of last week we moved our operation to Park West Studios in Brooklyn to record the next album for Clean Feed. Jim Clouse at Park West was fantastic - the kind of engineer we like - no nonsense, he got great sounds right away, and was supremely efficient. We spent five hours tracking on Monday and four hours mixing and mastering on Tuesday, and it was a done deal. Nice to have Pedro from Clean Feed stop by the studio for part of the time on Monday as well...
The music was two extended compositions, one by myself and the other by Jason Mears, organized into nine separate sections. Jason's piece was new for this tour, mine we've been working on for over a year now (it's the same composition we presented at the ISIM Conference in Chicago last December; click here for a peek at the score).
More info on this record as the project progresses. This one is going to be quite different, even we were surprised at how the music came out. Certainly the goal was to compress what we were doing with these extended compositions in our live concerts into 3- to 8-minute tracks. I think we achieved that, but the ensemble sound is very, very different than anything else we've done. We haven't decided on a title for it yet, so there's not much more I can reveal at this point other than this sexy, sexy waveform (yes, that's the entire 55-minute album):
I read on The Rambler today sad news that Horatiu Radulescu has passed away. I know very little of his work and life, but the little I did come in contact with has made me curious to learn and experience more of his work. I sighed reading the news, feeling time passing and somehow another connection in the fabric of art music now gone.
Ted Diadiun, ombudsman for Cleveland's The Plain Dealer, defends the decision by the newspaper's editor, Susan Goldberg, to remove classical music critic Donald Rosenberg from...
I'm very excited to announce my chapter plan, which of course may change as I actually write these chapters.
1)Intro Fundamental thesis: The various musical choices of the groups, including concert dress, stage layout, repertoire, and performance time and venue, form, to varying degrees, part of a social discourse enmeshed in conservatory education, lost hegemony, legacy, individualism, and an emphasis on the new and different. It is this discourse, this polyphonic texture of values, beliefs, and mythical memory that informs my interpretive framework. This rubric examines three interdependent binaries that occur within and between classical and new music culture: traditional/avant-garde, popular/art, modern/postmodern.
• Scope, Parameters, Definitions of Key Terminology & Such • Discussion of Methodology Employed • Review of Existing Literature & Need for the Study • Overview of Thesis Contents & Organization
2) The Groups in Historical/Cultural Context History of NME’s/Avant Garde Levine, Horowitz, etc. Modernism, 50’s-60’s Babbitt, Born, IRCAM, alienation, intellectualism, scientist, experimentalism, liberation. Classical Conservatories History of Groups in these contexts Draw on Bordieu
3) Thick description & Ethnography
4) Musical & Performance Elements & Self-Fashionings: Analysis of: Repertory, pop & classical, conservatory training, Choreography, Clothing, Stage layout
4) Social & Structural Self-Presentations How do “non-musical/non-performance” aspects reinforce, inform, challenge, supplement, what occurs on stage, in recordings....? Organization & Structure of Groups Money, touring, websites, pr, hierarchies, tax returns, Argument/Interpretation: draw on Foucault, ordered bodies Feld: Sound structure as social structure
6) Conclusions: Performative Implications and Interpretations of above
In undergrad--at least at a liberal arts school like the one I attended--study was accompanied by a sense of wonder. We didn't know anything, and each new thing could be a revelation, and you could be excited about learning it, and by the attendant sense that there are still so many other revelations out there waiting for you.
Then there's grad school, the purpose of which is to learn to act like you already know everything. When you learn something in grad school, it represents a failing on your part. The feeling you get when you learn something is the feeling that you should've known that already.
One of the advantages of working as a rehearsal pianist is the time during staging rehearsals that can be spent reading books (or, in some cases, writing blog posts). I've gotten a lot of reading done in these seven-minute increments this summer, including lately a fair amount of Jed Perl's New Art City, about modern art and artists in New York in the mid-20th century.
I'd had a vague desire to read more books about art for a while, and this fit the bill perfectly. An experienced critic, Perl knows how to effectively convey a piece in descriptive terms, and the theoretical discussion is also very sophisticated (and, coincidentally, a good foil to playing badly-written keyboard parts for a certain musical which shall remain nameless). I feel like I'm massaging my brain when I read it.
Just one thing has been bothering me, however, and it's a practice that's been getting under my skin for years now. Perl has an annoying habit of spinning a nuanced thread about one of these artists, the central thrust of their work, its social and historical context, the sometimes surprising connections to other movements and eras, and so much more... and then capping it off by describing something as "great" or the "greatest" this and this.
The example that spurred this post comes from his discussion of Anni Albers. Perl's analysis is subtle and thought-provoking as he pulls this artist from the background of other figures of the era, and yet as the culminating point of the section, he describes a set of her pieces as "among the greatest textiles of the twentieth century."
I'll forgive him the qualifier, "among the greatest," which weakens the sentence so significantly, because it's the presence of the superlative at all that I want to take issue with. Especially following upon such a complex and fascinating bit of analysis, I find it theoretically anticlimactic to close the discussion with a simple superlative. This statement, that her work is "among the greatest" of its sort, carries no information, particularly in this context. It is by far the least interesting thing he says about Albers for this reason: it adds nothing to the discussion but sensationalism.
We all make statements like this, labeling various pieces, paintings, albums, composers, even whole movements, as the "best" or "greatest" or "worst." It helps us to frame our own artistic experiences and label the things that resonate with us personally, which is fine. But ultimately these classifications probably reveal nothing more than the biases of the speaker, based as they are on arbitrary sets of artistic values. In the context of a discussion like Perl's, which is not about the explication of artistic values or arguments regarding particular values, a superlative statement such as this is particularly vapid. He explains in terrific detail the origins and concerns of the art, but the culminating statement that it is "the greatest" or "among the greatest" adds nothing substantive to the discussion. Any such evaluation necessarily requires the presence and prioritization of artistic values, and in this case those values remain undescribed.
I'm reminded of one the more annoying examples of superlatives in our culture: the endless top-100 lists that pervade the popular music world. If you don't know what I'm talking about, pick up Rolling Stone or turn on VH1, I'm sure you'll see one. These statements exist only to excite and sensationalize, not to edify. No information is provided, only a consensus opinion. It isn't legitimate artistic discussion. It's advertising.
Make no mistake, I will continue to talk about greatness of various artists and works--mainly as a way of framing my own experience, classifying the events and figures that I find exciting. It's an act of hubris to assume that those statements will be equally meaningful to anyone else. It's certainly legitimate that a critic writing a book would promote their own version of greatness, but it's important for those of us reading the book, or the top-10 list, to realize that we are only seeing one version of the truth, based on a set of values that may not correspond meaningfully or usefully with our own.
The world has become too big, full of too much art and too many artists. There is no longer room for uncomplicated statements of worth.
Franz Schubert has to be one of the most subtly great of the Great Composers. I mean, he is a great composer, but so much of the time he doesn't seem to really be doing anything very special, and you're left wondering what exactly it is about his music that makes him so much better than, say, Carl Friedrich Zelter. So here's an idea. It has to do with one of my favorite Schubert lieder, his Goethe setting "Heidenröslein." Here's a score, courtesy of the IMSLP:
And here's a translation of the lyrics:
A boy saw a rose, A rose on the heather, It was young and beautiful as the morning, He ran to get a better look And viewed it with joy. Rose, rose, red rose, Rose on the heather.
The boy said "I'm going to pick you, Rose on the heather." The rose said, "I'll prick you, So that you'll always remember me, And I will not let you." Rose, rose, red rose...
And the wild boy picked The rose on the heather; The rose fought back and pricked him, But the pain did no good, and oh, Such suffering must happen. Rose, rose, red rose...
Let's take a look at this little tale using Freudian dream interpretation. (Why Freudian dream interpretation? If the flowers are talking back to you, you're probably dreaming, right?) I don't think any of us would have too much trouble coming up with a pop-Freudian interpretation of Goethe's poem, one having something to do with, oh, I don't know, maybe sexual loss of innocence. (Every rose has its thorn.) I think that's a pretty reasonable interpretation, and one that would probably be reasonably obvious to anyone listening to the words.
But for dream interpretation, as Freud saw it, that's only half the process—and not even the most important half. Freud would call the actual dream—in this case, the poem's literal meaning—the dream-content, while our pop-Freudian analysis he would characterize as the dream-thought. Freud prescribed interpreting the dream-thought, but only as an intermediate step. Because what he was really interested in was the dream-work, the specific translation from latent thought to actual dream. Here's how he put it in the sixth chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams:
All other previous attempts to solve the problems of dreams have concerned themselves directly with the manifest dream-content as it is retained in the memory. They have sought to obtain an interpretation of the dream from this content, or, if they dispensed with an interpretation, to base their conclusions concerning the dream on the evidence provided by this content. We, however, are confronted by a different set of data; for us a new psychic material interposes itself between the dream-content and the results of our investigations: the latent dream-content, or dream-thoughts, which are obtained only by our method. We develop the solution of the dream from this latent content, and not from the manifest dream-content. We are thus confronted with a new problem, an entirely novel task—that of examining and tracing the relations between the latent dream-thoughts and the manifest dream-content, and the processes by which the latter has grown out of the former.
Freud agreed with previous theories that dreams were a psychological effort at wish-fulfillment, but saw the representation of those wishes not in the dream-thought, but in the dream-work; the unconscious desire that fuels the dream can be found in the particular way the dream-thought is transposed into an actual dream.
So how would this apply to "Heidenröslein"? We've established that a plausible dream-thought for the song is the loss of sexual innocence, but why turn that into a ditty about a young boy and a rose? Freud would probably say that the unconscious desire behind the poem is for sexual activity to be regarded as carefree and natural as children's play. Which is exactly what Schubert portrays in the music. The musical content is that of a children's song; the strophic structure actually diminishes any sense of conflict; the insouciant ritornello—
—resets each verse like rounds of a game.
But I don't think it's just coincidental—Schubert is, at the same time, acknowledging the desirous intent musically: the shift from C-natural to C-sharp between measures 2 and 6, the way the repeated "Röslein" of the refrain is set to a rising scale, one that them humorously tumbles back down the octave range of the song. Schubert's genius is that he is anticipating Freud's psychological insights by nearly a century, and illustrating them with his musical choices.
This is a pretty specific example, but I think we all have some intuitive sense for this sort of thing. I wonder, in fact, if it's how we decide whether or not to accept people bursting into song during musicals—that transition, after all, pretty definitively shifts any narrative's level of realism into the realm of dream-reality, so maybe we only buy it if the musical addition sufficiently mirrors what we (perhaps subconsciously) recognize as the dramatic dream-work, the unconscious desire motivating the shift from speech into song. A lot of my favorite opera works this vein as well—Verdi's music often seems to be at tonal odds with the events of the plot (the final ensemble of the ball scene in Traviata, for instance), while Puccini's often seems too big, too melodramatic for the plot to justify (pretty much all of La Bohème), but they're not illustrating the action, they're illustrating the desires that fuel the action, which are psychologically dissonant or out of proportion with not only the characters' actions, but sometimes even their own testimony.
One last thing: what makes music such fertile ground for this sort of interpretation is its semiotic flexibility; what a particular bit of music "means" can slip into a slightly different meaning without too much trouble. Freud again:
I know a patient who—involuntarily and unwillingly—hears (hallucinates) songs or fragments of songs without being able to understand their significance for her psychic life. She is certainly not a paranoiac. Analysis shows that by exercising a certain license she gave the text of these songs a false application. "Oh, thou blissful one! Oh, thou happy one!" This is the first line of Christmas carol, but by not continuing it to the word, Christmastide, she turns it into a bridal song, etc. The same mechanism of distortion may operate, without hallucination, merely in association.
Play a piece of music for an audience of 100 people, and you'll get 100 different interpretations. The basic outline may be similar across the board. But the variations? They're hints to what each person really wants.
1. The Black Torrent Guard: Impoverished musicology/guitar student Andy talks about the new social network for new music, NetNewMusic, kind of a Facebook for new music geeks.
3. Amusicology: "Drew does a post-op on his first solo class."
4. JohninGeorgia: This is a fascinating blog by a musicologist who happens to be in the middle of the Russia-Georgia conflict right now. This particular post ties together the war with an analysis of Orthodox chant.
5. ThoughtLights: Dan muses on how music appreciation textbooks convey value to his students.
The season is on in Columbia and the days ahead are filled with some enticing programs of stimulating and thought-provoking music. Columbia did its duty by Mozart earlier in the year with the Mozart Festival, but the 100th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich's birth has gone mostly unnoticed here. (Not a single Shostakovich work graces USC's September Concerts series). However, one of the greatest and certainly most popular and accessible of his works can be heard this Thursday evening, Sept. 14. The USC Symphony will be doing the Symphony No. 5 that night, along with Philadelphia Orchestra concertmaster David Kim as soloist in Bruch's "Scottish Fantasy."
Speaking of the September Concerts at the University of South Carolina School of Music, they continue for the next three Sunday afternoons. The works that catch my eye on the programs ahead? I would check out the premiere of John Fitz Rogers' "Sonata Lunaris" for violin and piano this coming Sunday, Sept. 17, played by William Terwilliger and Andrew Cooperstock; the Ruth Crawford Seeger Wind Quintet, and Rebecca Clarke's Viola Sonata, both being performed on the Sept. 24 concert. More details on the series here.
D-alternative is a Polish duo consisting of Dorota Wierzchowska on vocals and Andrzej Drelinkiewicz on keyboards and electronics. The primary genre is basically Darkwave or Gothic with a bit Medieval or New Age creeping into the mix. Some of the past listeners have compared them to Delerium or Dead Can Dance . That may be true in the electronically based tracks like “Awakening” and “Spring” but D-Alternative really comes into their own when acoustic piano and Dorota’s mezzosoprano voice either dominate the proceedings such as on the opening “Judith” or go on their own in the acoustic duo versions of “Up Into Silence” and “Miracle”. These twilight tunes are like a walk in a very dark forest.
Just when you thought that not much could get worse in the troubled fields of newspapering and music criticism, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has silenced one of the country's most respected, fair-minded, and independent critics, Don Rosenberg, over his regular -- and wholly accurate -- criticism of the Cleveland Orchestra's sub-par music director Franz Welser-Möst. Tim Smith, of the Baltimore Sun, lays out the latest developments below.
For now let me add that Don was and is a model of what a critical voice should be, calling things as he sees and hears them and demanding that the standards of one of the world's great orchestras be maintained. Like Don, I was blown away by Welser-Möst's Rusalka (see below) which I saw as a staged opera in Salzburg last month and which Don heard and reviewed in a concert version in Cleveland in the spring. It may very well be that Welser-Möst is a fine opera conductor, but he would not be the first or the only of that breed who really has no business leading a symphony orchestra when he does not have 150 singers standing on his head. I say these things having heard Cleveland a number of times with Welser-Möst in its own wonderful Severance Hall and other Cleveland venues and on tour, in standard and unusual repertoire, commissions, in purely orchestral works, and with instrumental and vocal soloists.
After six years at the helm, Cleveland has renewed the Lightweight from Linz (left) through 2018 (!). That is their own doing and, I suppose, as a non-Clevelander, I have to say their own business. But that their management and trustees should have been able to prevail on an independent and once highly-regarded newspaper to tell its chief critic what he can and cannot review is a journalistic scandal of the first -- and worst -- order.
Don Rosenberg, music critic at the Cleveland Plain Dealer for 16
years, was told yesterday by the paper's editor that he will no longer
be covering the famed Cleveland Orchestra. He has been given the
option of reviewing other musical events in town, as well as dance.
Another writer at the paper, Zack Lewis, was told he will now be
orchestra's reviewer. First, the full disclosure: I've known Don and
Zach for years; both are members of the Music Critics Association of
North America and its board of directors; Don is the immediate past
president of that organization; I'm the current president. Now, the
full, unbridled response to this news: It stinks.
Music critics are hired to deliver critical opions. If those opinions
are not popular with some people, tough. As long as the critic
demonstrates musical knowledge and a keen ear for what is involved in
the art of music-making, the critic is fulfilling the job
requirements. Don's musical background is as good as it gets, his
evaluations reasoned and sensitive. He has covered the Cleveland
Orchestra for nearly three decades (including a stint with another
area paper), and he's the author of the definitive book about that
orchestra. So what did he do wrong? He has questioned, more than once,
the sanctity of the Cleveland Orchestra's music director, Franz
Welser-Möst, who started in 2002 and has had his contract renewed a
couple times, the last extension taking him all the way to 2018. Don
has judged that Welser-Möst is lacking in certain abilities in certain
repertoire, that he doesn't necessarily get the best out of music or
the eminent ensemble. Yet, Don is also the first to admire what the
conductor does best, as was the case a few months ago after a
performance of Dvorak's Rusalka. Don wrote that Welser-Möst "was in
his element ... shaping a performance full of atmosphere and energy.
He emphasized flexibility and shaded Dvorak's luminous paeans to
nature with tenderness." Don went on to suggest that more spacious
phrasing would have benefited a couple of passages, "but Rusalka is
surely one of the highlights of Welser-Möst's tenure."
Take a look back through the Plain Dealer archives and you'll find
plenty of balanced examples like that. A critic hell-bent on bashing a
conductor wouldn't hear a single worthy note. But, apparently, some
Cleveland Orchestra boosters can't accept any negative words about the
music director. I imagine they dismiss as irrelevant the fact that the
orchestra, while on tour, has been known to generate reviews by other
critics expressing reservations about Welser-Möst. Of course, there's
nothing that can be done about out-of-town naysayers, but there's
always good old-fashioned lobbying that can be tried at home. That, it
seems, has now been successful. The Plain Dealer has clearly caved
into pressure from a faction representing the orchestra and the man on
its podium. By silencing Don, those myopic folks must think they've
achieved a great victory. They haven't. They've made a venerable
newspaper look cheap and act cowardly. They've made a sterling
orchestra look a little less so. Ultimately, this calculated attack on
a music critic doing his job casts a suspicious light on his
detractors and their motivations.
Like Somerset Maugham wrote: "People ask you for criticism, but they
only want praise." Any orchestra's player, conductor, board member,
lofty patron or ordinary ticket-buy who only wants to read praise has
missed the whole point of the artisitic process. Not to mention a free
press. Then again, any newspaper that would silence a serious,
bona-fide voice because some people don't like hearing it may need a
refresher course, too.
The last Met performance this season of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio -- almost two weeks ago now, I'm afraid -- was, as reports had suggested, a modest but real success. I was pleasantly surprised by the second couple: Aleksandra Kurzak finessed the high notes a bit but played Blonde with a winningly earthy womanliness, and Steve Davislim showed a light but charming tenor, just the thing for Pedrillo. Kristinn Sigmundsson has neither huge round sound nor the trick low notes but I could listen to his ease and fluency as Osmin all day. (I'd love to hear him as Ochs.) Polenzani was pure please to hear as usual.
If there was any disappointment it was in fact Diana Damrau, who despite her comic affinity is even worse of a serious actress than I'd feared. Worse than the expectedly cool and less-than-traurig "Traurigkeit" was the exaggerated bobbing (with, unfortunately, accompanying heavy sonic accent) of her body that was supposed to stand in elsewhere for strong feeling. That said, she can sing "Marten aller Arten", which counts for a lot.
David Robertson conducted with emphasis on clean light textures, but used a light hand outside of the well-coordinated ensembles that were the evening's highlight. Another modernist approach, but much more effective than Bicket's for this month's Clemenzas.
Polenzani, Kurzak, and Davislim reunite in Chicago next March for another Abduction, with Erin Wall as Konstanze. Looks promising.
* * *
I did see another performance of La Clemenza di Tito -- the last this season. The singing was again notable, but what most stuck me was how strongly -- between Tamar Iveri's Vitellia and Susan Graham's Sesto -- the mixed and unclean feelings of a poisonous relationship were made tangible. Iveri can't sing her part as strongly as her predecessor Melanie Diener, but Diener was no schemer and the relationships in that last revival never came into such focus.
Also, I've never seen an audience made so enthusiastic by Mozartean opera seria.
In what looks to be its second-to-last issue (though in light of the imminent global meltdown, this seems a smaller concern), the New York Sun published Fred Kirshnit's account of Thursday's Town Hall event featuring Teresa Stratas.
It includes this tidbit about something which, like the original Mattila Salome (filmed but unreleased), the Met really should offer for sale despite overlap:
However, Ms. Stratas, who canceled often, did not feel up to the broadcast [of Berg's Lulu] and Levine had to go with a substitute, Julia Migenes-Johnson. For three decades, the general public never saw Ms. Stratas as Lulu, a major missed opportunity.
But the dress rehearsal was taped, and the Guild showed a section of it on Thursday.
I know a number of operabloggers are Stratasphiles -- did any attend?
Dance: Maverick composer a master of the microtone Salt Lake Tribune, United States - 2 hours ago By Celia R. Baker Avant-garde composer Harry Partch dreamed of music so unusual and complex that it couldn't be produced by existing instruments. ...
It's Happening - North York insideTORONTO.com, Canada - 2 hours ago CECILIA SINGERS, a chamber choir singing church music from Victorian to Messiaen, invites singers in all voice parts to audition. ...
This 1963 Stereo Review interview with Herbert von Karajan was tucked inside a copy of Curt Riess' 1955 biography of Wilhelm Furtwängler that I bought years ago from a rare book dealer. In it Karajan ranges from baroque to contemporary music. A fascinating document that is worth reproducing even though it is very difficult to read in this format. Sorry about the legibility and cropping, but transcribing the complete text is beyond even me. However this perceptive exchange deserves to be captured:
Herbert Pendergast - Do you think that the music of composers like Boulez and Webern will be easily understood by the musical public of the next generation?
Herbert von Karajan - I am quite certain that the next generation will have no problem in understanding most of the music of today. Think of the Bartók Concerto for Orchestra. Twenty years ago it was considered inacccessible; today it is a classic. Think of the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. When we perform it today, it sounds like a concerto grosso of Handel. With the decline of melodic inspiration in music, the serial techniques of today are a necessary self-imposed discipline for the composer...
Pendergast - And those who listen to this music must impose upon themselves a discipline as great!
Karajan - One is not born with an understanding of Beethoven, either!
Karajan's Schoenberg, Berg and Webern featured here. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
In a review of a new anthology of sonnets, Ron Silliman (boy, do I learn a lot from his blog) writes of poets who
...have seen in the sonnet precisely the dynamics of constraint that elsewhere drives Oulipo toward its amazing proliferation of forms. The point of the sonnet therefore is not to put oneself up against the likes of Shakespeare or Ben Jonson, but rather to see the sonnet for our time as a series of powerful literary devices that can open the present up completely.
Isn't this amazing proliferation of forms quite like that, for the sonata, found in Cage's Sonatas and Interludes, Lou Harrison's early Six Sonatas for Cembalo, or Gordon Mumma's Sixpac Sonatas, or in the profligate sonatas of John White or Boudiwijn Buckinx (also here)? One of the reasons that these pieces are so rich in spite of their brevity — and especially in comparison with the longer modern sonatas based on late classical and romantic models — is that they take the form to its roots, prior to the establishment of the tonal model of the classical sonata movement, as a canzona per sonare (an instrumental work in which sonic quality is emphasized) or the elementary binary form in which the fundamental compositional problem is that of the repeat which is able to lead both back, Ouroboros-style, to its own beginning, as well as forward to something else.
This is my first exposure to the Mass, and I must say, this EP was not what I expected. The cover art, and the fact that their last album was on Crucial Blast gives you some hints that you might be in store for some thrashy metal. And that is the case, sort of. The fact is, the four tracks presented here include some old school thrash elements, but they re also somewhat hardcore punk, and most oddly, jazzy. There s some free-form sax blowin here, which you might think would sound out of place in this context. But it works so well, you be left wondering why Slayer never tried it. The jazz element makes them original, but the fact of the matter is, pretty much every base covered here is done well.
uw Hypotheekadvies - Nature or Nurture
Uw Hypotheekadvies are a Dutch threesome, whose NAME translates to your mortgage advice , consisting of a drummer, bass player and a guitar player. They all have the last NAME Deckerman, so either two or more are related, or it s just a Ramones ploy. Their music is a weird combo of experimental improv and spiky post-rock. A few of these songs sound like they are improvs wrapped around pre-figured riffs, but most of the album sounds off-the cuff. With a few exceptions, this is noisy, trebly music, and it s plenty tough on the eardrums.
Yoshio Machida - Hypernatural #3
Yoshio Machida s Hypernatural series is, in his own words, a sound collage of sound parts used as meanings and symbols, and an endeavor to express the whole theme of nature through correlations between image and title, between pieces. The self-released first volume in the series had to do with memory in Eastern Asia , while the second volume was meant to relate to transparent existence . This third volume in the series is about oblivian . Machida believes that oblivion has a postive aspect in nature. This is because it is a part of the natural world, which over time creates changes in the world. Having said all of that, the artist certainly must feel a deep spiritual connection to the pieces archived on Hypernatural #3. Yet without the liner notes to guide one down the path, it would be in the least very difficult for one to surmise the theme. These pieces include multiltudes of interesting sounds, and on their own are entertaining, lively, and seamlessly assembled. Yet it s not always easy to detect the naturalist aspect.
Dub Gabriel - Anarchy & Alchemy
Anarchy & Alchemy is the new album from well respected Dub reggae/ electroncia producer and musician Dub Gabriel, Which features an impressive list of guest including Michael Stipe, Yo Majesty, Dr Israel , Juakall, & Jah Dan.
Funeralium - Self Titled
Funeralium are a French four piece who speclizers in rather heady, atmospheric and quite original sounding doom that mixers in elements of darkened rock, and even traces of dark blues and surf elements too.
Aughra - Proof of Dark Matter I Light the Lights
Aughra is the solo dark electrionca/ sound tracking project of Brent Eyestone Big China & Little Trouble, Magic bullet label owner & member of Forensics, Corn on Macabre . With sonic references points been Coil; at their more beat bound and vocal less, Ulver around Perdition city era, Darker Boards of Canada and dark ambient simmers.
Fri Oct 3, 8PM (FREE): Wadle, Wada, Steenberge and Tholl: American experimental chamber music
Sat Oct 11, 8PM (FREE): 3 Day Festival: Electronic musicians perform live duo and trio sets on day two of the festival
Thurs Oct 16, 8PM (FREE): Alessandro Bosetti/ Corridors /Chris Forsyth+Nate Wooley duo: Sound artists perform text-based and intermedia works with video
Fri Oct 17, 8PM (FREE): Andrea La Rose
Sat Oct 25, 8PM (FREE): Dan Joseph: Improvisations for electro-acoustic hammer dulcimer + special SURPRISE guest TBA
Paul Amlehn - Texts, Vocals Robert Fripp - Guitar, Soundscapes
Joan Jeanrenaud - Cello, Electronics
Jim White - Drums, Percussion
Robert Fripp was the founder of King Crimson, and has collaborated with artists such as David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, and Brian Eno. Joan Jeanrenaud was a member of The Kronos Quartet, and has worked with composers such as John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Philip Glass. Jim White is a member of The Dirty Three, and has played with artists such as Nick Cave, and PJ Harvey.
at Worksound
820 SE Alder
http://www.worksoundpdx.com/
$10 general / $8 members and students
Lytton/Wooley Duo Paul Lytton (drums, percussion, electronics) - legendary London improviser
Nate Wooley (trumpet) - Oregon born, and now an established NYC improviser http://www.natewooley.com/
The duo will be joined in the second set with local guest Pete Swanson (electronics/tape) - of Portland’s acclaimed Yellows Swans http://www.jyrk.com/yellowswans/media.htm
about the Duo:
Two musicians of different backgrounds share passion for improvisation and redefining their instruments.
Genres are meant to be bent. That’s what legendary British percussionist, Paul Lytton and New York trumpeter Nate Wooley believe. The two musicians, from seemingly different backgrounds and musical circles met up in 2006 to record their eponymous debut LP for Detroit’s Broken Research Records.
Paul Lytton, known primarily in the US as the drummer for the ground breaking Evan Parker Trio, has been forging new ground as a free jazz percussionist, electronicist, and maker of instruments (for example, the lyttonophone) for almost 40 years. Along with Paul Lovens, Tony Oxley, and John Stevens, he is firmly entrenched in the British tradition of experimental improvisers who have gone beyond the jazz tradition to deal with a new way of improvising. Over the years, he has played with such improvising luminaries as Parker, Barry Guy, Marilyn Crispell, and Ken Vandermark.
Nate Wooley is a relative newcomer to improvised music circles, breaking into that public’s consciousness with his solo recording, “wrong shape to be a storyteller” (Creative Sources Recordings) two years ago. Growing up in a small fishing town in Oregon, Nate got a solid jazz education from his father in a northwest coast dance band, but eschewed the tradition of jazz trumpet to concentrate on extreme sound, touring and recording with such hard noise and rock groups as Melee, Graveyards, and Akron/Family. He is currently working in New York with everyone from Drag City’s David Grubbs to new music composer/bagpiper Matthew Welch.
A week like no other Philadelphia Inquirer, PA - 3 hours ago The orchestra packed Verizon Hall with a free concert for college students apparently eager to hear not just Tchaikovsky but also Lutoslawski. ...
The Air This Week Boston Globe, United States - 1 hour ago 2 pm Susanna Malkki/Ensemble Intercontemporain: Stockhausen, Norgard, Nancarrow, Vichard, Boukhtine, Carter (France Musique) . . . 2 pm New music (MDR ...
Revolutionary Snake Ensemble’s 2nd CD Forked Tongue was released in May to resounding critical and radio acclaim. The disc was on the CMJ North American jazz top 20 chart for 2 months, peaking at #11, and has enjoyed a remarkable run of great reviews. In addition to extensive Canadian and American press and radio, the CD has been the subject of reviews, feature articles, and interviews so far in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Germany, Argentina, and elsewhere.
Recent performances have included the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), the Providence Sound Session, and the Sterling Stage Last Daze of Summer festival near Syracuse.
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
Sunday, October 26, 2008 (3pm):
Brooklyn Botanic Garden annual Halloween bash
1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
bbg.org
Sunday, October 26, 2008 (7-9pm):
Barbes, 376 9th St, Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY
www.barbesbrooklyn.com
718-965-9177
Saturday, October 11, 2009
Roswell Museum & Art Center annual outdoor party
Roswell, New Mexico
roswellmuseum.org
Roswell Rudd’as TROMBONE TRIBE will perform at the Lake George Jazz Festival on Sept. 13th
Roswell Rudd’s QUARTET will perform at the Princeton Arts Council on October 30th and at the Korean Cultural Center in NYC on Ocgtober 31st
Roswell Rudd’s TROMBONE TRIBE will perform at the Berlin Jazz Festival on November 8th and at the Bin Huis on November 9th
Upsilon Acrux
As of today we are in the midst of recording our latest for Cuneiform, it’s tentatively called “Radian Futura” and will feature a song that’s very close to 30 minutes long among other things. That has already been recorded and sounds really fucking good to me. Better at this stage than any other recordings we’ve done. This recording is being done at Infrasonic in Alhambra, CA like the last one but this time Pete is engineering it. This album should be out in May ‘09.
We have one more show before we take a long hiatus… Oct 4th, Eagle Rock Music Festival, it’s free and there are a lot of good bands playing, I think we go on at 7:30pm so if there are any of those Cuneiform people in LA, I’ve not met any? Strange??
We are definitely coming to Europe in 2009, most likely May so anyone w/ a festival that needs something different and will pay, we are available. Bands in Europe that want to do shows together or tour a country together, get in touch!!!!
Volapük
1) We made a very nice and positive tour last April in Eastern Europe (11 concerts in Czech Republic, Slovakia, but also Austria and Italy).
2) The group just decided some days ago to work on a new “composed” program (after our improvised tour of April 2008)
3) Our upcoming concerts will be in France :
-February 22nd “Festival de Chabeuil” (Chabeuil/Drôme).
-May 31st Festival “Sons Dessus Dessous” (Vaucluse)
Some more concerts are on the point to be fixed this coming season (like 1 in Rennes for the 20th anniversary of the french label In-Poly-Sons).
4) Volapük is seriously thinking to record a new album. It should be done in the nex year, we hope…
5) Volapük will appear soon on a compilation realised in Eindhoven (The “Stichting Jazz Power” of Eindhoven is doing this compilation for its 30th anniversary).The piece who will appear on this compilation was recorded in 1999 at the Wilhelmina Café in Eindhoven, called “Rondo” and never edited before.
YANG
The band hopes to be able to release (at last) its last recording : “Machines” before 2009. If not, it will be released for sure in 2009. For any inquiry about this release, and about booking and upcoming concert or simply for saying that you love them, please contact the band via its Myspace myspace.com/yanggroup or Youtube http://fr.youtube.com/Yanggroup (the band is currently looking for dates anywhere in Europe from March), there is a new live performance video there.
Frédéric L’Epée is founding a new band in Paris. The line up is 2 guitars, 1 saz (turkish lute), accordion, percussions, and maybe a brass instrument.
He has completed the composition of a new piece for electric guitar and accordion : “The end of the dream ( 3rd duo)”, ordered by the duo Jörgen Brilling and Uwe Mahnken. The musicians begin rehearsals now. The first performance is planned for April 2009.
Laurent James is currently rehearsing with the new line up of Lord of Mushrooms (prog-metal), preparing a China tour in October.
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
The Hideout
10:00PM | Slow Cycle Josh Berman - cornet
Jason Stein - bass clarinet
Nate McBride - bass
Frank Rosaly - drums
two sets
$6 cover
PLUS |DJ Sets: Todd Carter spins O Positive
Thursday, 2 October 2008
Elastic
10:00PM | Greg Ward Quartet
Greg Ward - saxophones
Rob Clearfield - keyboards
Jeff Greene - bass
Quin Kirchner - drums
two sets
Sunday, 5 October 2008
The Hungry Brain
10:00PM | Cline/Baker/Lonberg-Holm/Kotche Nels Cline guitar
Jim Baker ARP and piano Fred Lonberg-Holm cello
Glenn Kotche drums
two sets
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
The Hideout
10:00PM | Frame Quartet Ken Vandermark - tenor sax, Bb clarinet
Fred Lonberg-holm - cello
Nate McBride - electric and acoustic bass
Tim Daisy - drums
two sets
$6 cover
PLUS | DJ Sets : Vandermark Soundclash
The End of the American Underground? Indie Rock from the 1980s
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Elastic
10:00PM | Bishop/Albert Jeb Bishop - trombone
Jeff Albert - trombone
11:00PM | Branch/Berman/Albert/Bishop
Jaimie Branch - trumpet
Josh Berman - cornet
Jeff Albert - trombone
Jeb Bishop - trombone
Sunday, 12 October 2008
The Hungry Brain
10:00PM | Eastern Seaboard
Brent Bagwell - reeds
Seth Nanaa - drums
Jordan Schranz - bass
11:00PM | Rempis/Branch/Kessler/Hunt
Dave Rempis - saxophones
Jaimie Branch - trumpet Kent Kessler - bass
Steve Hunt - drums
Admirateur de Iannis Xenakis, Morton Feldman ou György Ligeti, le contrebassiste John Eckhardt aborde sur Xylobiont son instrument en chercheur, et finit par mettre la main sur une série d’improvisations étonnantes.
Inquiet de mouvement malgré une apathie tentante, et puis, intéressé par la polyphonie, Eckhardt laisse lentement aller son archet, édifie une apaisante construction de pizzicatos ou use des ressemblances de dynamiques qu’il interroge avec les résultats possibles de pratiques électroniques minimalistes. Jouant avec les capteurs des micros de sa contrebasse, il amasse aussi quelques drones dont auraient pu plus aisément se charger un saxophone grave, ou tire d’un passage d’archet un maximum de couleurs sonores. De morceaux d’ambient en déconstructions, Eckhardt alterne enfin l’allure de sa démonstration, d’un bout à l’autre éloquente à en devenir indispensable.
CD: 01/ Back 02/ Mbhere 03/ Bruson 04/ Noo bag 05/ Filum 06/ TTzz 07/ Tenh 08/ Mob >>> John Eckhardt - 2008 - Xylobiont - Psi Records. Distribution Orkhêstra International.
LPO / Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall, London Independent, UK - 5 hours ago Then came the most startling coup – a segue from Ligeti's Atmospheres into Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Here, Jurowski really challenged our perceptions ...
WSU, UI celebrate composer’s centennial The Daily Evergreen, WA - 18 hours ago ... faculty of WSU and University of Idaho schools of music are joining musicians from all over the world to celebrate the 100th birthday of Elliott Carter, ...
Artist: The Stargazer s Assistant
Title: Shivers and Voids
Released: September 13, 2008
Written and arranged by David J.Smith: harmonium, acoustic guitar, synths, water bowl, chain, door, matchbox, percussion, tapes, samples, vocals. Antti Uusimaki: mellotron, synth, effects.
Sara Hubrich: bowed thunder-board 1,3 violin, viola 3 . Chloe Herington: bassoon 3 .
David J. Smith Guapo, Miasma & The Carousel Of Dead Horses releases a second set of recordings as The Stargazer s Assistant. Following The Other Side of the Island on Aurora Borealis, Shivers and Voids is a union of instrument, voice and tape. A soundtrack left waiting for the right film to accompany it through the dark. Sweeping, intricate, sometimes ominous, yet always exuding a warmth of emotion. Ancient forests, vast plains, billowing clouds, rusted metal hulks, wet rock walls, lights flickering in darkness. The Stargazer s Assistant reveals all this to us.
Artist: Klangmutationen
Title: Schwarzhagel
Released: September 13, 2008
Recorded: Recordings were made between February and May, 2008 in Cheras and Subang Jaya, Malaysia. Further editing, mixing and treatments by Yeoh Yin Pin.
Tham Kar Mun: tenor saxophone. Yandsen: tenor saxophone.
Yeoh Yin Pin: electric guitar. Kok Siew Wai: suara.
Klangmutationen are an mystery. More could be said about what their music isn t than what it is. Hailing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the underground experimentalists pierce the veils of Eastern and Western music. Recalling early sets on FMP as well as the Takayanagi/Abe axis of Japanese free music, Schwarzhagel is the sound of a spirit falling past its own life after death, forever.
Artist: Nadja
Title: Trembled
Released: September 13, 2008
Recorded: 1-4. Recorded by Aidan Baker at a private event, Toronto, Canada > March, 2006.
5-6. Recorded by Scott Slimm at Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia > June, 2008.
Aidan Baker: guitar, vocals, drum machines. Leah Buckareff: bass.
Trembled has returned, triumphantly. Released by Utech Records 046 in the summer of 2006 on limited cdr. The principal live recordings from Toronto have been remixed/remastered and include a rare performance of Swans No Cure for the Lonely. The core of the release, though, is “Tremble”, a cascading improvisation of drift and atmospherics revealed to audiences on an occasional basis. The track is telling of the fluidity with which Nadja create and why the band has become so highly regarded. “Breakpoint” and “Corrasion” complete the set. Exclusive material has been added in Stays Demons and a second version of Tremble recorded by Scott Slimm in Philadelphia. Illustration by Justin Bartlett. The ultimate DOCUMENT of Nadja at their most electric and empyreal.
The encounter with Javanese Music includes the confrontation with a complete rhythmic and formal system shared by music, poetry, and movement (dance, puppetry, or martial arts). (Another excitement is the irama system, in which tempo and rhythmic density are combined in a profound and sophisticated way: stuff for another item.) Karawitan, gamelan music, like early western music, has become an essential alternative or "other" music in my life, a beautiful and useful mirror, echo, and alternative to the music proper to my own time and place; performing this music has been a joy that cheerfully falls into the category of amateur.
A Javanese performing artist learns to internalize instrumental forms, which are marked by patterns of various sized gongs and drumming, to which vocal melodies, using poetry in verse forms with strict syllable counts and fixed vowel sounds at the end of each line*, are strictly placed and to which, likewise, dance steps (by puppets, human dancers, and martial artists), moves and gestures are oriented. In this environment, when one is aware of the underlying structures and their markers, it is possible to create ever-new combinations of music, text, and movement, often in extemporaneous real time performances. (I think that in Java the importance and energy put into creative activity we would characterize as arrangement of existing materials rather than the composition of new music, texts, or movement is one factor in the relatively low rate in which new compositions are added to the active repertoire and is also a contributing factor to the relative anonymity of individual composers).
For contemporary western musicians, any similar systematic relationships between the forms of our instrumental music, song, verse, and movement are rather deeply buried in our archaic past. (Dr. W's short version of western music history: sever song from dance, then song from metric verse, and then music from both.) From the perspective of an English speaker like myself, knowing something about our stress-based traditional verse forms is of little help in getting an intellectual or practical handle on these traditions for the combination of text with music, as the connection between forms and metres based on stress and those of music (which are based on duration as well as stress) is largely one of analogy and, acoustically speaking, a weak analogy.
I did have the fortune of taking Greek and some Latin in college, so, at the same time I was becoming acquainted with Javanese music, I came into contact with historical western traditions which did not have (or rather, did not yet have) the modern separation of music from words and movement, and had duration-based poetic metres, combinations of 1,2, or 2 syllable feet, each syllable either long or short, which were common to (Classical Greek, having pitch accents, adds yet another dimension to the performance of poetry, and the relationship between pitch accent and melody is a topic of very interesting conjecture).
My musical training, on the other hand largely passed over issues of rhythm, and when rhythm was treated, it was in a rudimentary way with little attention to connections with words or movement. To be sure, the well-known Cooper and Meyer book is very useful for classical repertoire, and discussions of harmonic rhythm — a topic considered unfashionable during my Schenker-flavored schooldays — can be useful in establishing a relationship between materials and the pace of their presentation and consumption. Also, Schoenberg's Fundamental of Musical Composition has a very useful discussion of the development of musical forms according to analogy with language, as assemblies of motives, phrases, periods, and sentences. (An even large deficit in my training had to do with music for dance; as it happens, I ended up having more experience with renaissance music/dance connections than with those between classical ballet and music; which is certainly a deficit with regard to a lot of music I'd really like to better understand).
But these are all descriptions of existing practice for historical repertoires, and it would surely seem, at first though, to be more useful to a contemporary composer to depart, in questions of text or movement, from the assumption that there is no necessary connection to music rather than from a full-blown formal-aesthetic system. However, I suspect that there is considerable potential for the invention of new music (and texts and movement) based upon the recovery and manipulation of, not the specific materials, but the structures of such systems.
_____ * For example, in the form Gambuh, the syllable counts and final vowels for each line of a verse are: 7 — u. 10 — u. 12 — i. 8 — u. 8 — o.
If the press murmurings are to be believed, he is a messiah: here to give classical music new life as an accessible art form that is relevant to a 21st century audience. Of course, it’s an impossible (some would argue unnecessary) task for one person but it seems that if anyone had the talent needed to fulfill the prophecy, it would be a 27-year old American composer called Nico Muhly.
One thing is certain: Muhly doesn’t fit the composer myth. He didn’t produce symphonies at age 3, nor is he starving in a garret awaiting flashes of divine inspiration. In fact he didn’t start piano lessons until the practically geriatric age of eight and didn’t really get into music until a friend convinced him to join an Anglican church choir. I caught up with Muhly via telephone last week and found him to be extraordinarily affable with a sharp wit, a gift for colourful metaphor and a great fondness for the puppies he meets while negotiating the streets of his New York neighbourhood.
So, how does a choirboy become a composer? “It was a very undramatic thing,” explains Muhly. “I just kept on doing school and music and the two things kept on complementing each other. It wasn’t until after I was [at Julliard] that I really thought that I could have a life entirely devoted to music.”
Now, 4 years after graduation, Muhly works as a copyist for Philip Glass, has collaborated with Björk and has received commissions from Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Opera, The Gotham City Opera the Paris Opéra Ballet and The American Ballet Theater. Oh, and he’s also made two albums of his own work, finishing the tour in support of the most recent one, Mothertongue, last month.
In the not-too-distant past, music by living composers was presented as a sort of spoonful of cod liver oil that had to be consumed before audiences were allowed to hear the good stuff. I asked Muhly if he has found that attitudes are changing. “In adventurous places like where you are [Kitchener-Waterloo], modern music is finding more of a legitimate home. In New York, certainly in an orchestral concert, it’s still being presented in a very 1970s, 1980s way of ‘Take this. You’ll thank me later.’”
This adventurous outlook is due largely to KWS conductor Edwin Outwater’s commitment, right out of the starting blocks, to imaginative programming. Mostly it works. Sometimes it doesn’t but that isn’t really the point. Sampling from the whole menu instead of always getting the soup and sandwich special is a far more nourishing way to explore orchestral repertoire.
This weekend, the KWS is giving Muhly’s piece Wish You Were Here its Canadian premiere at The Centre In The Square.
In a set of program notes, Muhly describes it as “a completely romantic and fanciful gamelan-influenced piece, attempting nothing but the most superficial authenticity;” a daring admission for someone from a generation steeped in post-colonial guilt.
Gamelan music, originally from Indonesia, came to the attention of Western composers at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Claude Debussy attended and was entranced by the gamelan’s alternative scales and intricate counterpoint. His most famous symphonic poem, La Mer, is also on the program this weekend.
Wish You Were Here is a joint homage to ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee and illustrators Carl Barks (Donald Duck) and Hergé (Tintin). This may seem like a strange pairing but a few weeks of following Muhly’s delightful blog reveals that this mash-up of disparate elements is not a compositional tool as much as it is part of his essential makeup. Recent topics include the “fully absurd” Sarah Palin, similarities between the NY Phil’s branding and the Always logo and “vegetarians’ inability to cook a vegetable.”
Facilitated by Youtube, Wikipedia and the iPod’s random feature, Muhly’s omnivorous approach to culture, whether it be high or low, native or foreign, is typical of his generation. Formal categories are something he finds, “boring to think about. The minute you start think about, oh, what genre is this you’re not enjoying yourself, you’re just wasting time. It’s the modern day.” he continued, “I always thought you can have it all.” At the moment, the world is Muhly’s oyster, so…why not?
This week, Miss Mussel had lined up a treat for those of you with computers hooked up to floor-rumbling speakers. Unfortunately, the only recording she could find was so hideous that a change in plans was the only option. Perhaps when Passionato becomes available in North America, she can find another recording and try again. Strangely, North American shoppers are able to browse the catalogue, sign up and receive our ten pre-selected samples but we can’t seal the deal. How is that in any way logical?
So, it’s a trip right off the beaten path this week to something that only most creative marketer could call classical. It’s still worth cranking the stereo for. Your co-workers will smile in spite of themselves and Miss Mussel is confident that at least one of your toes will be tapping by the end.
5">Write in with composer’s name, title of piece and date of composition. If you’ve got a story about this piece, send it along as well.
Our favorite anti-academic academic Kyle Gann did his annual extolling of odd meters this week, with the added, especially fun bonus of some published transcriptions of Bulgarian folk music. And he had this to say in passing—
From my readers' previous very informative debate, I know that some will object to the very notating of these traditional tunes, claiming that they can only be learned orally, and I reiterate the most relevant comment left by someone who knew this music:
[T]he Bulgarians DO NOT count out every "8th" or "16th" note while performing their music. They express them as long and short beats. They actively discourage trying to count it out, and expressed that the only way to hope to begin to play it accurately would be to feel the long and short beats.
Doubtless true, making the whole topic an excellent entrée into teaching students that there's more than one way to scope out rhythms, and entire societies in which consecutive beats are not assumed "steady," but can be different lengths.
—which, I realized, is a nicely efficient wedge into the whole question of notation and tradition and modernity and its discontents.
Kyle characterizes the objection to notation as "doubtless true," and while the objections certainly exist, I myself have rather serious doubts whether they're valid or not, especially nowadays. I would venture to say that a good musician could learn Bulgarian folk music from a combination of notated music, written description, and recorded examples, and play it just as well as someone who learned the tradition exclusively orally. What's interesting to me is what the persistence of that distinction—between learning via oral tradition and book learning—says about the importance of folk music in modern society, a society that is a long, long way from the one in which such music was originally created.
There was a time when the only way to transmit folk culture was orally, but that time is gone; most folk cultures have been pretty well ethnographically mapped, and what few corners of the world there are still untouched by mass media and digital connectedness will be on the grid before too long. In other words, to learn a given repertoire exclusively through oral tradition and personal interaction is now a choice, not a necessity. And the criterion behind that choice is the perception of authenticity. I myself am pretty agnostic on that score—authentic, synthetic, I like them both—which probably means I just don't feel as anxious about the fundamentally alienated condition of modern existence, or something like that. But I have no objection per se to an asserted authenticity, which I think makes for an interesting and sometimes provocative frame for an artistic experience.
That said, though, I do think that "authenticity" is an illusion, that all musical activity is in some way stylized and synthetic, and to make a moral distinction between oral traditions and written traditions on the basis of perceived authenticity is invalid. And what's more—and here's where my own personal annoyance springs to the fore—it verges rather uncomfortably close to anti-intellectualism.
This sort of privileging of oral tradition, as applied to music, always seems to me to be disingenuously ignoring the fact that classical musicians are trained just as much through a similar oral tradition as through scores. That's why you study with a teacher, that's why you study recordings, that's why you go to concerts to hear various interpretations of the repertoire. There is not a musician in the world who thinks that the printed score is a complete and accurate representation of the musical experience—to notate the rubato in even the most Apollonian rendition of a Chopin nocturne would probably make one's mathematical hair curl. Of course notation is an impoverished version of music, but all musicians know that, and approach notated sources appropriately. (Notice that to critically describe a performance as "mechanical" is never, ever a good thing.) Nevertheless, I've lost count how many times I've read or heard such classical training patronizingly disparaged by those partial to an oral, vernacular tradition.
I don't pretend to be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I do rather proudly aspire to being an intellectual, in the sense that I take great joy in the possibility that some sense of the complexity and depth of the interaction between an active mind and the world it perceives can be generously communicated to complete strangers. I was tickled pink to see Kyle's notated examples, because they represent a portal into a tradition that, for reasons of geography and time management, I otherwise wouldn't have. To dismiss such communicative efforts strikes me as not only parsimonious, but distressingly unambitious—especially given the way the combination of notated and oral musical traditions catalyzes the process of learning. The true core of the intellectual tradition is not obscurity, not a discriminatory use of jargon, not any of the unfortunate abuses that are demagogically expanded into anti-intellectual bludgeons—it is, rather, the faith, the intellectual security that a persevering mind at any stage of learning can master any idea, any practice, any subject, and can then transmit a roadmap to such mastery to anyone else inclined to take the journey.
I don't really have a personal motto as such—I'd hate to settle on any one—but definitely on my list of candidates would be a line Emily Dickinson once included in a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson: "My Business," she wrote, "is Circumference." (Another poem of hers was addressed to "Circumference thou Bride of Awe".) That process, and possibility, of expanding the mind to encompass any topic is half of the beneficial heritage of intellect. The other half? It's the reason I can commune with Dickinson's ideas, with the thoughts of a virtual homebody over a century removed from me. She wrote them down.
According to certifiable genius Alex Ross, today is Worldwide Atonality Day, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Schoenberg's lied "Du lehnest wider eine Silberweide," from Das Buch der hängenden Gärten. Alex also noted that this month marked the 50th anniversary of the composition of LaMonte Young's "Trio for Strings," as plausible a birthday for Minimalism as any.
The calendar is unusually cooperative in this case, but fifty years does seem a relatively reasonable tick of the clock for musical styles, give or take. Try these birthdays on for size:
Baroque: ca. 1685 (birth of Bach)
Classical: ca. 1750 (death of Bach)
Early Romantic: ca. 1809 (death of Haydn)
Late Romantic/Impressionist: ca. 1869 (death of Berlioz)
Atonal expressionism: ca. 1908
Minimalism: ca. 1958
I wouldn't face down a firing squad over that chronology, but I don't think it's totally out of bounds. It does seem that every 50-60 years, the historico-stylistic playing field changes.
Which, of course, means that we're due. If you accept Barzun's concept of Decadence, if not his pejorative sense of it, we do seem to be in a decadent period, a transition between stylistic epochs—or, at least, the dawn of a novel one. So if you're in the mood for prognostication—what's the new school/paradigm/category/thing?—what should you be looking for?
Before we answer that, it needs to be pointed out that, especially in the past century, such overarching categorization is ignoring a lot—neo-this and -that, jazz-classical hybrids, various nationalist styles, that whole Hindemith thing, &c. Atonality and Minimalism have just been the most coherent stylistic developments, the ones that were a big enough break from what came before, while being possessed of a repertory of features that made them easily recognized as styles. And one more thing: I think they're both kind of like religious fundamentalisms, in a particularly post-Enlightenment way.
No wonder then that religious fundamentalists are among the most passionate digital hackers, and always prone to combine their religion with the latest findings of science: for them, religious statements and scientific statements belong to the same modality of positive knowledge.... The occurrence of the term "science" in the very name of some of the fundamentalist sects (Christian Science, Scientology) is not just an obscene joke, but signals this reduction of belief to positive knowledge. The case of the Turin shroud is here symptomal: its authenticity would be awful for every true believer (the first thing to do then would be to analyze the DNA of the blood stains and thus solve empirically the question of who Jesus' father was...), while a true fundamentalist would rejoice in this opportunity.
What I think atonality and Minimalism have in common is this similar appeal to science. Atonality built up its own scientific edifice, via serialism; Minimalism rejected that edifice on the grounds that it violated laws of acoustics and neurobiology (it's just not natural to hear music in that way). Does that make the respective practitioners fundamentalists? Both schools do seem to inspire some amount of fundamentalist behavior—Rochberg's "apostasy," debates as to whether John Adams is a "true" Minimalist or not, and so forth. But that's also because (as previously mentioned) the stylistic boundary lines are bright enough to make such judgments.
So if I was looking to predict the future, I'd be keeping my eye out for any category displaying a) a sufficiently clean break with the past, b) scientific justification, and c) some form of circumscribed vocabulary. Spectralism is an interesting case in this scheme: a definite reliance on scientific analysis, but retaining connections of vocabulary and sonic effect with post-serialist atonality—not, in its current form, enough of a break. Straight-up computer-generated music might have a claim—by definition, it relies on positive knowledge, at least of software and engineering—but the vocabulary remains wide open. If I had to bet a dollar, I'd say that the new paradigm will come out of the use of the computer, but I'd only bet a dollar. That's the fun and frustration of living through cultural decadence—it's all up in the air. I don't think we have the clear outlines of that 2058 anniversary concert just yet. For now, a revival of "Anything Goes" will do nicely.
When I was little and first learning to play the violin, I always thought that the more your fingers moved towards the bridge on the violin, the harder the piece was that you were playing. Well, if I were to...
Last spring's hilarious cafe menu by the American Modern Ensemble will go down as one of the best of the year, the latest in a string of carefully wrought programs showing intelligence and wit. On Monday night the group takes a major step forward starting its new season at TheTimesCenter, the striking new performance space in The New York Times Building, with Women Who Rock, works by eight of today's most interesting composers.
[Above: entrance to TheTimesCenter, photo by Fred R. Conrad for The New York Times]
Affirmation doesn't get much more dramatic than the $500,000 awards from the MacArthur Foundation, and this year the attention to music shows admirable breadth. Among the 25 distinguished winners, the selection of Alex Ross is particularly heartwarming. If you haven't yet delved into his fascinating observations on twentieth-century music in The Rest Is Noise, all it will take is a chapter or two to show why he deserves this recognition.
But the other winners make a formidable, imaginative group: violinist Leila Josefowicz; Walter Kitundu, whose experimental instruments grace San Francisco's Exploratorium; and jazz saxophonist Miguel Zenón. I was also delighted to see designer Jennifer Tipton cited for her often astounding talent with light; her brilliant work for Paul Taylor Dance Company show's a sculptor's eye for form, heightening the effect of Taylor's bold approach to movement.
[Photo: Glyndebourne's 1997 production ofManon Lescaut, directed by Graham Vick, sets and costumes by Richard Hudson, lighting by Jennifer Tipton]
As the theater darkened for the beginning of the Metropolitan Opera’s Opening Night Gala last Monday, the packed house fell to a hush as Ramón Vargas, singing the role of Alfredo in Act II of La Traviata, chased a demure Renée Fleming across the stage in her role as Violetta, and then sang of his profound love for her. The evening, offering up selections from La Traviata, Manon and Capriccio, would push the opera stars, orchestra and set changes to the limit as a lavish home gave way to a decadent ball, a grand street carnival, and an austere cathedral, before the evening closed with another dramatic domestic scene. Watching the Met in full swing, it was not hard to imagine the 1,100 shipping containers stashed in a New Jersey storage facility where the Met houses it set designs, costumes, and all the trappings of a full production.
“So you like the falling towards the screen?”—“It was better when it ends with your arms outstretched.”—“Last time I was too far forward. I couldn’t get out of the box.”
A group of dancers stood in sweats and sneakers around a towering wooden box, the front of the box covered with white fabric. Soft light illuminated the screen. Doctor Atomic choreographer Andrew Dawson watched as a single dancer moved towards the box and slowly fell. The dancer’s shadow, enormous now, dripped down the screen.
“It looks like a big atomic explosion, doesn’t it?” Charles Sheek, Assistant Editor at the Met, was walking through the Met lobby but stopped to observe a sight not seen in over forty years: the big chandelier, just returned from Vienna where it was outfitted with new crystals, sat at the top of the landing. Electricians and technical crews carefully spun its long, crystal-encrusted arms back in place.
“Isn’t this fun? What a starburst!” answered Jerry Seeram, who has been a security guard with the Met for eight years. Seeram had also stopped by late on Friday afternoon to observe the proceedings. “No one believes me when I say the chandelier, when it’s lowered, takes up the whole atrium. But it does,” he continued. “Look at it! It’s huge. Just gorgeous. There aren’t words to describe this.”
The chandelier spans 18 feet. Electrical crews stepped slowly around its spindly extensions. “Think that’s solar powered?” Sheek joked. “Looks more like nuclear. I think Oppenheimer would have approved.” “I hope it’s green,” Seeram added. “It sure is beautiful.”
The officiating crew turned the chandelier on to full blast and stood back, their arms around each other for a photo. The protective brown paper covering the rolling staircase crinkled beneath them. The crystals glinted, refracting rainbows.
“One, two, three.”—Click.
“That was fun,” someone said. “Can we do it again?”
Sept. 27-28, First English Lutheran Church, Richmond
Alexander Paley’s fall-weekend music festivals in Richmond wouldn’t be complete without at least one selection that tested the pianist’s technical and interpretive capacities and the listener’s comprehension and endurance. In this 11th edition of the festival, that piece was Robert Schumann’s Sonata No. 3 in F minor, known as the "Concerto without Orchestra."
As its nickname implies, the sonata draws upon the full range of tonal, coloristic and dynamic resources that a pianist can summon. Its movements are large, often sprawling, and it makes grand, passionate statements. Its passions are most aroused in the first movement, in which a motif of Beethovenian simplicity is repeated with growing intensity, and in a set of variations on a profoundly desolate theme by Schumann’s wife, Clara Wieck.
Music propelled by huge chords and torrents of notes expressing high passion is what Paley plays best. No wonder he was attracted to the Schumann sonatas, which he presented in chronological order as the opening selections in each concert of this festival. (He plans to play all three in a single program in future recital dates.) The F minor Sonata, which he played Sept. 28 concert, is the most challenging of the three; and while the pianist has almost all of its notes securely under his fingers, some of its contours remain sketchy. He has yet to tame the decorative spinoffs from the allegro’s motif, which sound like digressions, or the finale’s tendency to sound like random, hyperactive noodling.
The Sonata No. 2 in G minor, opening the Sept. 27 program, was played with Schumann’s original, relatively undernourished rondo finale. (Afterward, Paley said he will substitute the later, more developed final movement in future performances.) The pianist emphasized the rhapsodic, Chopinesque quality of the sonata’s first and second movements, shaping the latter’s halting phrases quite effectively, and treated the scherzo with suitable impulsiveness.
The Sept. 27 concert centered on two piano trios, in which Paley was joined by violinist Kathy Judd and cellist Clyde Thomas Shaw. In Mendelssohn’s Trio in D minor, moderate tempos highlighted Shaw’s big, bassy cello tone in the first movement and gave both string players expressive space in the andante. Comparably measured tempos in Schubert’s Trio in B flat major directed the ear to the tonal brilliance of Paley’s Blüthner piano – the Schubert was perhaps the best showcase of this German instrument’s uniquely resonant high register – but also drove home the repetitious quality of this piece. (Is there a more endless movement in all of chamber music than the closing rondo of this trio? You’d swear not as it goes around, comes around, and ’round and ’round . . . )
Clarinetist Charles West, the Virginia Commonwealth University professor who has performed with Paley in all his Richmond festivals, delivered this edition’s most polished chamber performance in the final program, playing Brahms’ Sonata in E flat major, Op. 120, No. 2, as a robust, long-breathed stroll on an Indian summer afternoon. West’s command of his instrument’s tonal and expressive resources was on full display here; Paley was a strong but supportive partner.
Paley and his wife, Pei-Wen Chen, presented another cycle in this edition of the festival, playing Weber’s three sets of short pieces for piano four-hands. The first two sets (Opp. 3 and 10) are light, generally cheerful examples of 19th-century domestic keyboard music, the stuff of courtships in the afternoon and family musicales in the evening. The third set, "Eight Pieces," Op. 60, is a bit grander in dimension and technical challenge. The couple’s Sept. 28 performance peaked in the fourth piece of the set, a quasi-gallop, and in the penultimate march, the tune that more than a century later would be revived as the centerpiece of Hindemith’s "Symphonic Metamorphosis" on Weber themes.
Paley and Chen also played Schumann’s "Bilder von Osten" ("Pictures from the East"), capturing Slavic and Magyar accents lurking within the composer’s high-German musical diction.
The pianist and Linus Ellis, associate minister for music at First English Lutheran Church and chief local organizer of the festival, announced that a 12th edition is planned for the weekend of Sept. 25-27, 2009.
Here's the complete list of Gramophone Award winners for 2008. There are several I'm pleased to see, but most of all Tasmin, whose Naked Violin project of course involved no record company, therefore has by nature to be independent of any industry pressure. The list I was sent does not include the labels of each disc, but these will no doubt be available on the Gramophone site as soon as they have all recovered from their hangovers.
Stephen is that rarity among today's highest-profile pianists: an artist with both imagination and integrity, and one that I will actually cross a road to hear. The others, frankly, I can count on the fingers of one hand.
Hello, folks: there is, shock horror, favouritism in the music business. There is political correctness in the music business. There is a lot of incomprehensible rubbish - indeed, complete, utter nonsense - in the music business. Of course, I have favourite musicians too, but at least I know they're my favourites; I believe them to be among the greatest artists alive today, but I don't go telling Times readers that they've made the five finest recordings of the last 30 years (well, I can't; I don't review for the necessary mag.)
Personally I would rather swim back to shore from my desert island than include Harnoncourt's Beethoven in my eight discs, let alone have to sit through Karajan's Mahler. And how do you arrive at a shortlist that does not include any of the following: Krystian Zimerman's Debussy Preludes; Anne Sofie von Otter's Terezin CD; Richard Goode's complete Beethoven sonatas; Andras Schiff in the Goldberg Variations; Mitsuko Uchida's Schubert B flat Sonata; Matthias Goerne and Brendel in Winterreise; Marc-Andre Hamelin's mind-boggling Chopin/Godowsky set? And those are just a handful of pianists plus a singer or two. Discs are churned out month after month after month; everybody likes different ones; any list is simply invidious.
Music industry awards help to raise classical music's public profile, because the media likes winners and snazzy ceremonies. That is their use, and their only use.
...which is just out. Classic FM Magazine sent it to me to review and it knocked my socks off. Virgin Classics has sensibly made a promotional video, so here it is.
Meet the Quatuor Ebene, four adorable young French fellows (what IS it about the French?) giving their fellow countrymen Debussy, Ravel and Faure the full treatment. And, to my particular joy, according the elusive Faure quartet equal status with the other two. Chapeau!
The New York Times has carried a story explaining that a music critic in Cleveland has lost his job for being, allegedly, excessively critical of the Cleveland Orchestra's conductor, Frankly Worse Than Most, oops, I mean Franz Welser-Most (FYI, the former is what certain musicians in London used to nickname him).
A lot of grey areas surrounded the appointing of FWM as principal conductor of the LPO, where he started back in 1990. Tennstedt departed in 1987 due to ill health, a replacement had not yet been named and it was then that the Tory government got a Lord to investigate things and recommend which of the London orchestras should be murdered. To qualify for a chance of survival, an appointment was needed and FWM was named PDQ. Not very many conductors would have been available at that kind of notice. Happily, the Hoffmann Report eventually told the government to get off and leave all our orchestras right where they were. Meanwhile FWM was in place, and if I remember rightly some of his performances were good and others weren't. Fairly normal, then.
BUT: the London press loathed him.
It was the critics, not the orchestra, that wrecked his career at the time in the British capital; he kept talking about this nightmare era in interviews for years. It is not entirely clear how it happened, but seems to go back to his first-ever press conference for the LPO, which most of the critics left with the impression that FWM was arrogant, abrupt, inexperienced and so forth. All of which may have mean that he was just bloody nervous. But what's certain is that the resident vipers developed a serious grudge which only got worse. The difference was, they didn't lose their jobs - whereas eventually the unfortunate youth, after enduring five and a half years of printed hell, packed his bags earlier than intended.
Perhaps what's happened to the critic Donald Rosenberg is a hazard of smaller-city-America cultural life; here in London, just one critic could never have been held responsible for the savaging of FWM. They were all at it like a pack of hyenas. It is easier to target one person operating in a cultural desert, like a gazelle that's been separated from its herd...
All of which does not necessarily mean that FWM is the world's greatest conductor.
I'm off to Newcastle/Gateshead tomorrow to give a talk at The Sage's ExploreMusic library series, which very wonderfully seeks to bring music and fiction together. I'll be talking a little about the different ways music features in my novels and a lot about Hungarian Dances. Plus readings from book. If you're in the area, do come along, it's free.
By the way, if you're wondering what became of our recent poll about the future of JDCMB, the result was a slight but clear lead for keeping this blog as it is and initiating a separate books blog. Naturally it would be handier for me to lump everything in together - after all, they're equal concerns in my mind, and to run two separate ones will mean less frequent posting on both - but I appreciate that not everyone sees it that way. October will therefore see the launch of my new Books, Writing & Culture in London blog. Watch this space!
Anna, as in Anna&Robin 'Life of a Musician', has 'tagged' me, so I'd better be good and play the game.
The brief is 'to write six things about me, personally, that my readers might not know', and then, 'tag' six other twitter/blogger friends and make them 'it'.
All right, here goes.
1. I got into Cambridge for composing. I had to write something for a school celebration (it was a setting of Psalm Somethingorother) and the headmistress liked it and she wrote me a glowing reference...oh well...
2. My first cat was called Whiskers.
3. But I really wanted a dog.
4. If I could, I would move to France tomorrow. No, today.
5. I wrote 7 novels before Rites of Spring.
6. I was at university in the mid-80s with a hell of a lot of people who went into the financial world with the starry glow of Thatcherian idealism writ large across their wine-sluiced visages, and having seen which people they were I am not remotely surprised that the entire world financial system is in the throes of collapse since this is the generation that is now in charge of the bloody thing. Could have told you that years ago. I believe that Margaret Thatcher wrecked the moral fibre of the western world, and this is the price. (There. Bet you didn't know that about me. ;-) )
6. Ruth, of Meanwhile, here in France...because she lives where I'd like to live. Just look at her photos of late-season veg and the reasons for point no.4 will be apparent.
Have fun, folks. I am off to Newcastle in the morning.
Starduster for guitar and string quartet will have its premiere on October 25th at the INAX Live Museum. They're also performing some Puccini songs which I arranged for guitar string quartet and soprano, Debussy's string quartet, and Boccherrini's string sextet. This Sunday I'll be performing Fernando Sor's Magic Flute Variations for guitar at Yoshio Nomura's Happyokai at the Cafe de Aria in Ozone.
Pianist Bruce Brubaker is that hero tonight when he steps in to perform an all-Glass program in replacement for pianist Michael Riesman who was forced to withdraw from his concert at Le Piossion Rouge. Bruce is a long-time Glass champion having released two CDs of containing Glass music. You can hear some of his music at his myspace page. He's an excellent pianist and we hope that despite the confusion a crowd will show. Joining Brubaker is "Face the Music" who will be performing Glass' Two Pages. One of my favorite early scores.
Wild Turkey, one of Glass Notes' field operatives, just contacted me to let me know that Philip Glass will be on WNYC (NPR) on Monday episode of "Soundcheck" discussing the 10-disc Nonesuch GLASS BOX. He'll be talking with long-time supporter and Soundcheck/Newsounds host John Schaeffer.
NEW YORK (AP) — Philip Glass has been commissioned by the New York
City Opera to compose an opera that imagines the final months in the
life of Walt Disney.
The announcement was made Monday by the opera's incoming General Manager Gerard Mortier.
The
opera, "The Perfect American," is based on a recent novel by the
American-born writer Peter Stephan Jungk. It will open City Opera's
2012-2013 season and honor the composer's 75th birthday.
Mortier
scrapped the traditional 2008-09 season while the company's home at
Lincoln Center undergoes a $200 million renovation. Instead of staged
operas, the company is presenting concert performances around the city.
As
part of the 2009-10 season, City Opera will present Glass' "Einstein on
the Beach," which was first staged in New York in 1992. The season will
focus on 20th-century works.
The story of Disney in "The Perfect American" is told by a fictional Austrian cartoonist who worked for Disney in the 1940s-50s.
Violinist Yael Bat-Shimon play somber but beautiful solo improvisations that are part traditional music, part classical and very creative. The online album titled Improvisations 05.04.08 is a live performance sponsored by ARTSomerville It is a exquisite 32 minutes of solo violin. Much of Bat-Shimon’s improvising is based on Israeli traditional music so there is a slightly folksy and very lyrical quality to her music. This is an album you will want to hear over and over to catch all the subtleties.
The album is available in FLAC, Ogg Vorbis and MP3 format from the Internet Archives through the download link below. You can also get the album through Jamendo .
This Prom was supposed to replicate the premiere of Mahler's Fifth Symphony on October 18th 1904 using the same orchestra, the Gürzenich of Cologne and the same programme (with updates). This is a pic of the front page of the original booklet. The critics of 1904 hated the piece. "The train of thought is as incomprehensible as the style is enigmatic" said one, while another praised the audience for hissing at the "shadowy labyrinths" of Mahler's mind. Another said "Mahler now stands alone as an enemy of culture". Whatever the purpose of this replica Prom, it shows that even firm favourites like Mahler 5 were once derided for "dissonances and dreadful oddities".
But one review, in Munich, was more analytical. "The bizarre should never deter one when judging a work : look at Berlioz", he said. ""What people consider to be disconcerting is for me the composer's most delightful characteristic". ..."only a thorough study of the score could give an exact idea of the ....eminent refinement of the orchestration". Pretty perceptive for a first hearing, since current performance practice emphasises the intricate detail. Mahler was quite specific about it being Kammermusikton, chamber music sound, where small units function distinctly and interlock to create the whole. Markus Stenz has done his homework. This performance showed how valuable it is to "listen" to what a composer is trying to say, rather than jazz things up to wow the crowds. Earlier this year I heard Philippe Jordan conduct Mahler 5 after a Mozart piano concerto. Bingo ! The combination showed how Mozart and Mahler, in their own ways composed with intelligence and clarity, adventure and subtlety. If you don't know why I dislike Dudamel's "style" listen to his recording of this symphony. Or better not....
The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny opened the Ediburgh Festival this year, conducted by my hero, the inimitable HK Gruber. It's being broadcast by BBC Radio 3, so log on and listen.
Weill’s contribution to the Brecht/Weill partnership is often underestimated, and Weill is more inventive musically than he’s often given credit for. Here are witty set pieces, mock-ups of operatic aria, fake hymns, quasi-pompous marches and bar-room piano rolls, complete with swooping glissandi.Deliberately off-key, of course. Weill uses catchy tunes, so people hum along, hardly realizing they are singing something subversive. And thus Mahagonny insinuates itself into dance band music and pop song, so when people do hear the full Mahagonny, it's eerily familiar. Sentimental tunes for a decidedly unsentimental opera !
HK Gruber is perhaps the perfect conductor ! All his life he's specialized in uproariously manic satire and in the agitprop of the 1930's in particular. If you listen to nothing else of his, grab his recording Roaring Eisler or the recent release of his own FRANKENSTEIN!!!! which I might write about later as there is nothing in this world quite like it. And Gruber is the great grandson of the guy who wrote Silent Night, Holy Night. He really understands the malevolence of Brecht and Weill. He gets punchy playing from the Royal Scottish Orchestra who probably still don't know what hit them ! But perhaps a less staid orchestra might have raised more sparks. Vocally, too, most of this was a bit polite.
Get the DVD of the LA Opera production for more distinctive singing and superlative acting by Patti LuPone and Audra Macdonald. Mahagonny and Los Angeles have a lot in common, which is uncomfortable and this could have been disturbing but what do you expect ? I can imagine the ghosts of Brecht and Weill snorting sardonically at the LA crowd spending big bucks on an anti-capitalist tirade. "There's nothing but today!" sings Jimmy as he's about to die. It's the good guys in Benares who get wiped while Mahagonny is saved, at least until it self-destructs.
Kings Place, King's Cross - remember where the apostrophes go, because we'll be seeing a lot of that phrase. This is the biggest new arts venture in London since the Barbican opened in 1982. Think how that changed things - think what Kings Place might do. Kings Place is an imaginative answer to the perennial problem of what to do about art forms that are too important to neglect yet don't attract mass audiences. Simple ! Build flexible performance spaces that lend themselves to intimate, human-scale events ! Hall One seats 450, a few less than the Wigmore Hall, while Hall Two seats around 200. So at last, purpose-built spaces for chamber music, art song, new music, early music, baroque. There's also a huge emphasis on jazz, world music etc but I don't know enough about that to comment. (I'll never get important, then !) Hall One is completely lined with wood from ONE ancient German oak. In mythology oak spirits bring good fortune, so let's hope ! The acoustic is supposed to be good and very warm, ideal.
Please look at these two links. The first is a wonderful video about the building and its setting, surrounded by canals and currently urban decay (but soon will be ultra trendy). http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/media-room/videos
The second link is to a preview on OMH Music about the opening celebration "Five Days, One Hundred Concerts!" Yes, 100 concerts, many free. Everything from Ligeti's 100 metronome installation to baroque ensembles, to South Indian music to "the English Ry Cooder". http://www.musicomh.com/classical/features/kings-place_0908.htm
From the US I just received some of the most SPECTACULAR series of photos of London, taken from the air at night. Look below at the link We are so lucky, we take things for granted,but look at these photos in awe ! Pity winter is drawing in, and it's dark early. Those of us who commute only see the grime and dirt. This is a reminder !
In summer, it's like magic when sunset lasts til 10pm. On the South Bank, on the river, you can watch the sky gradually transform. The glass canyons of the city lit up as if ablaze, reflecting each other. You can still see the skyline Monet saw 150 years ago - Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, St Paul's. And sometimes the river tides are out, and the banks are exposed. If you scavenge you can still find artefacts of London long ago - clay pipes from the 18th century, shards of Victorian bottles etc. Yesterdays rubbish, but somehow romantic. Here's the link, it really is fantastic !
Brand new recording of Britten's Billy Budd. Daniel Harding conducts the LSO at the Barbican. This performance changed the whole way I listen to Billy Budd. Previously it wasn't a favourite as performances usually take the "talking heads" approach to the voices and action. But this performance is radically different. It makes a compelling case for Billy Budd as symphony, an orchestral work that uses voices to extend its impact, not "opera" in the usual sense of singers against a backdrop. Suddenly, Billy Budd is revealed as extremely sophisticated musical writing, where the real action is hidden in the orchestration, not what's happening with the actors. Captain Vere's dilemma "is" the central and absolute drama of the entire piece. "My life's broken. It's not his trial, it's mine, mine. It is I whom the Devil awaits". This opera isn't even about Billy, but about how people respond to difficult ethical situations.
Billy Budd was written during the McCarthy era with its hysterical witch hunts. Britten was no fool.. It is significant how much he makes of the political paranoia of 1797, for it is pertinent to the "danger" the ship and its crew are in. Britten was emotionally reticent, knowing it could be dangerous to be too open, unsafe to be candid. So Billy stammers incoherently where he could save himself with clear explanations. Similarly, Captain Vere pulls back from the brink when he could have intervened. Billy Budd is an allegory where Britten expresses unfathomably deep emotions without revealing them except to those sensitive enough to listen.
Harding’s emphasis on the orchestra is thus psychologically as well as musically astute. Here the ocean is a protagonist, every bit as much as the singing roles. Indeed, against the wild forces of nature, the 'Indomitable' isn’t indomitable; it’s vulnerable, and can be destroyed by fate as capriciously as Billy himself is destroyed. Through the orchestra, the ocean takes central stage, turbulent and intense. Huge crescendos build up like mighty waves, but even more impressive is the undertow of dark, murmuring sound that surges ever forwards. Above this, currents flowed diagonally across the orchestra, first violins flowing to brass and basses and back, just as ships lurch back and forth. You could get seasick if you focussed too hard, but that is the point, for Britten is showing that the “floating world” aboard ship is unsteady, far removed from the certainties of dry land. Just like the enveloping mists, all points of moral reference are hidden. “Lost in the infinite sea”, sings Captain Vere, a refrain that recurs repeatedly, in voice and in the orchestra.
This ship is in full sail, you can feel the wind and see the open horizon. This is an important to the narrative, because it reflects the sense that supernatural forces are propelling Billy and Captain Vere inevitably towards their fate. More subtly though, this also expresses something about why Billy loves being up high in the foretop, riding the rigging, high up on the mast. He’s such a free spirit that even death cannot extinguish him. That’s why, perhaps, that he moves ahead, always forward, instead of dwelling on past sorrows. “No more looking down from the heights to the depths !” he sings, “I’ve sighted a sail in the storm…I see where she’s bound for.” It's not for nothing that Britten starts the opera with Vere reflecting on the past and ends with him being liberated, at last understanding what Billy meant.
Britten has been Harding’s speciality since he was in his teens, when he was conducting the Britten Sinfonia. Most of his career has been spent in European circles, where Britten’s music is perhaps less performed than in Britain, but this is an advantage because it makes his approach feel so individual. He has also worked with the LSO and with Bostridge for over 12 years, so the partnership is deeply rooted. Hence the vividness and cohesion in this performance. Take for example the Battle sequence, which bristled with vigour and alertness. There, extreme tension built up in the orchestra, instruments and voices traversing the music in stark staccato, and disciplined formation. Everything seems to be going on at the same time in different directions, voices interjecting, solo instruments leaping into prominence, the choir at full blast. Yet it’s all clearly defined and distinct. To stretch the maritime metaphor a little further: a conductor is like the captain of a ship and there are many reasons why precision gets results. Conductors, like captains, don’t waffle aimlessly and confuse their players, but lead their crew purposefully into action. One of Harding’s particular strengths is his ability to focus on the fundamental direction of whatever music he conducts. Thus he understands the Battle in the wider context of the opera: jus as the men are about to board the French ship, mist descends and the French escape. The excitement builds to fever pitch but descends into anti-climax. Nothing is resolved. It’s another parallel to Captain Vere’s dilemma, when he pulls back from saving Billy even though he knows in his heart that he could /should do so, if only he dared. Britten's writing for Vere is the most complex in the whole opera, for he is its true centre. The men call don't call him "Starry Vere", for nothing, and the "God Bless you, Starry Vere" chorus is beautifully transcendant. Like Billy, his natural habitat is way, way above the decks and hold where Claggart and his brutish bullies reign. Britten has him spouting about Scylla and Charybdis, for he's educated, an intellectual, someone who thinks and makes moral judgements. In contrast, the other characters, even Billy, merely act and react without much mental process. Captain Vere represents the finer part of mankind, capable of seeing beyond and above the immediate. Ian Bostridge is a perfect Vere, tortured and intense, utterly aware of the portent of what he must do. Even in old age, he can't find resolution until he realizes that each man is ultimately master of his own fate, and Billy's choice, so beautifully expressed in the song Through the port comes moonshine astray, was a vision Billy could live by and die with, whatever Vere might have done. Nathan Gunn's Billy at first bothered me because his voice is so light : yet why not ? Billy is a symbol, an ideal, and is a counterpart to Vere on a less sophisticated level. This performance showed how he, too, is 0ne of Britten's innocents, doomed because purity itself is doomed by fate itself, rather than by the actions of others, That's why Vere gets deliverance. Billy Budd deserves its place in the pantheon of Britten's most profound work.
"..and in this storm, these thundering waves, this war of wars, nothing survives but bankruptcy and disgrace, the face of a child, distorted by hunger, the cry of a madman - and Death"
Karl Amadeus Hartmann's rarely-heard Gesangsszene is a powerful vision of a proud society that seemed to have everything: prosperity,progress, even a cure for the common cold. Then, suddenly it's destroyed by "the sickness of great empires". It's horrifyingly prophetic because there are references to banking and economic collapse, even to "God's mortgages". Hartmann was writing in 1961, when the Americans were pitted against the Russians, and the Berlin Wall was built. He knew all about the flaws of even the greatest empires; he'd resisted the Nazis, not by emigrating like so many others, but by "internal exile", refusing to make music while the regime lasted. Then came Hiroshima (Hartmann specifically refers to the empire "finding atoms in cells") unparalleled material wealth, the "German miracle"and the Cold War. As a lifelong socialist who'd seen the Great Depression and war, Hartmann notes that Empires crumble, "especially the ones with apparently the most secure guarantees of stability".
Gesangsszene starts with long, haunting solo flute melody which gradually becomes tonally ambiguous as blasts from trumpets and trombones interrupt. Crescendi build up in the orchestra, richly, the flute's warning barely heard above the tumult. Then, suddenly, baritone Matthias Goerne materializes from within the orchestra: "Das ist derschönste Spielbeginn". It is beautiful and all the more terrifying for that. The text has a difficult, wordy syntax, so Hartmann sets it like speech, making the most of the solemn pace. At times, it feels like quasi-sermon for there is moral indignation behind the simple, matter-of-fact setting. When Goerne sings the third verse "Wir alle haben Reiche sturzen sehen", it's like a chorus.
At first voice and orchestra alternate, then gradually combine. Angular ostinatos underline the voice "Das Übel der Großen Reiche ! Das
Tödliche Übel ! It's horrible, horrifying. Huge swirling figures in then orchestra, like windstorms, crashing cymbals - and very quiet drum beats and single notes on harp.
"In jedes Vogellied hat ein grauenhafter Ton scheingeschlichen..... Und die Bäche sind clar und spiegelblank die Quellen" The orchestra plays "watery" sounds, wavering and insecure"Aber ich habe das Wasser gekostet, es ist das Wasser der Sintflut. " Hartmann didn't finish setting the last strophe, because he died. So it's intoned, unaccompanied. It could easily be done with silly histrionics, but Goerne chose a more dignified, simple style, closer to the numb understatement that runs throughout the piece. "Es ist ein Ende der Welt ! Das Traurigste von allen!". Not just one end of the world - it happens again and again, we never learn. http://www.musicomh.com/classical/lpo-goerne_0908.htm
Morton Feldman: The Late Piano Works Volume 1: Triadic Memories Musical Criticism, UK - 2 hours ago The singular effect achieved though is on the contrary one hypnotic and quite startling, the music seeming to take place outside of normal time as it ...
Guitar Genius Straddles Art and Rock St.Petersburg Times.ru, Russia - 1 hour ago With it, Chatham became the first composer to make use of multiple electric guitars in just intonation to merge the extended-time music of the 1960s and ...
'Milanov Conducts' A Promising Opener Evening Bulletin, PA - 2 hours ago He also handled the hitches and pauses that give Haydn's music its grace and wit, allowing the soloists' sweet pairings - strings together, ...
In the space of one week, the New Yorker's Alex Ross, author of The Rest Is Noise, won a MacArthur Foundation "genius award," and the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Donald Rosenberg was barred from reviewing the Cleveland Orchestra. Ross built his career around music criticism that's enjoyed by newcomers and aficionados alike, written with a gift for metaphor bested only, perhaps, by Kenneth Tynan, while Rosenberg was the go-to guy to find out what was happening with the Cleveland Orchestra, and whose down-to-earth writing was a verbal analogue of everything good and decent about the Midwest. So, what exactly happened here? How could one critic be barred from covering his turf while another is lauded for doing just that? It shows the tensions that are pulling publishing apart as well as the insatiable curiosity on the part of listeners and readers, and the delicate line that music critics of influential publications tread on.
I'll state at the outset that both Ross and Rosenberg are friends of mine. I also know Zach Lewis, who's now assigned to the orchestra's concerts. At the same time, I have friends, former classmates and several colleagues in and at the Cleveland Orchestra, and I have had zero conversations with anyone in Cleveland about this situation. I don't know what happened. I've read many of Rosenberg's reviews, but not all of them, but I do know that when he and I attended the same concerts (which we did at meetings of the Music Critics Association of North American around 2002 and 2003), we agreed on what we heard. I'll trust his musical judgment as much as I trust my own, in other words. Gary Hanson, the Cleveland Orchestra's executive director, wrote on Tim Smith's blog "that the Orchestra’s management understands and respects the paper's and the critic’s role in expressing opinion about our artistic activities," and I believe him.
I also believe that there's no such thing as bad publicity. If people are talking about you and writing about you, it means that they care about what you are putting in front of them. Sports teams know this intuitively. Ozzie Guillen might get righteously ticked at Jay Mariotti, before Mariotti left, at least, in the Chicago Sun-Times, but the chances of Mariotti being barred from writing about the White Sox are nonexistent. For the simple reason that people care, and they want to read something that's not cheerleading. I get a laugh whenever I tell people, "As long as they're talking about me." It's always better, whether it's at work, in the papers, on listservs, to be a topic. If you're a topic, it means you matter, and if you matter, people are gonna buy whatever it is you're putting out there, if only to see if they also disagree.
Which brings us back to Rosenberg. His reviews of Franz Welser-Moest called them as he heard them. This is what critics do. (Even more disclosure: I never heard FWM conduct the Cleveland Orchestra.) Some commenters have pleaded that Rosenberg wasn't "objective" in his reviews, and let's call this the lie that it is. If you want objectivity in a newspaper, people, go read the box scores. If you want to know what happened filtered through a knowledgeable person's mind, then you read the newspaper. Objectivity gives you nothing more than "The Beethoven was ragged, I guess, but it wasn't that ragged." It's tedious, and nobody with two brain cells to rub together should be expected to read it. Music isn't a thumbs-up or thumbs-down proposition; there are shades of gray and nuances in there, and it helps to have a critic around to describe what they heard.
that Cleveland is a small city, and that there isn't another paper out there to counter Rosenberg's critiques. But heck, New York doesn't even have a second paper of equal significance to counter a negative review in the New York Times. You tough it out and hope for the best if you get a less than stellar review from the Times. It's not the end of the world.
This is where Ross's recognition reenters the picture. He's won numerous deserved praises for the book (my own is here), but the larger point of that praise is that people are hungry to learn about classical music if the writer will meet them halfway. If you do not condescend to people, if you write in language and rhythms they understand, they will come to you. I know this from my own experience at a weekly city listings magazine and at this blog. You remain constantly vigilant about keeping your writing approachable, you use action verbs as if you're storming the goddamn Bastille, and you try to slip in an idea and philosophical turn of phrase whenever you can. The readers will come. (They'll also leave in droves if you don't keep your blog up, but that's another topic. Although it's more accurately been a single drove in the case of Dec Simp.)
Whatever happened in Cleveland, I hope the reasons for it are valid. I can't imagine what valid reasons might be in that situation, frankly, but my terminally open mind compels me to admit their possible existence. My one hope is that the recent success of Ross and his willingness to rewrite the twentieth century's musical history forces the Plain Dealer's editors to realize the importance of questioning perceived power structures. It's one of the more useful aspects of the media, after all.
Otep Shamaya Talks Politics and Activism on New Episode TransWorldNews (press release), GA - 5 hours ago Executive Produced by Navarro and co-hosted by Todd Newman, Spread TV was created as the first of its kind, avant-garde talk show that includes special ...
I emerge from my summer blogging hiatus for long enough to spread the word that my friend Mark Adamo has finally launched his web site. Just like its owner, the site is informative, entertaining and well designed.
With this site, Mark joins the world of Composers Who Blog, and there are already a number of intresting posts about the Israel première of Little Women and many other topics. I’ve known Mark for almost 25 years, and if anyone ought to be blogging, it is he. Mark is well known as a composer, particularly of opera, but he is also a wonderful writer (with a wicked sense of humor, by the way). I’m looking forward to his writings on opera and theater.
Reviews roundup: Morphoses guardian.co.uk, UK - 1 hour ago Wheeldon's own Ligeti-backed Polyphonia is "astonishing in its logic and integrity", depicting "dark, gluey, needy encounters" stripped of "all ...
Review: Auckland Chamber Orchestra at Town Hall Concert Chamber New Zealand Herald, New Zealand - 31 minutes ago After interval, an orchestrated Abhisheka made a stronger Ligeti connection than the string quartet original. Subtle interplay between soloists and the ...
Lou Harrison once said 'Don't put down the hybrids, because there isn't anything else'. The composer may have lived in a straw bale house, but he wasn't talking about the Toyota Prius. In his search for new musical contexts and new audiences Harrison produced a remarkable series of pioneering hybrid compositions. Among them is his jazz influenced 1959 Concerto for the Violin with Percussion Orchestra with a score that calls for 'found' instruments including brakedrums, flower pots and plumbers pipe. Young composers today are taking the same path as Lou Harrison and the result is a growing number of hybrid musical projects that use 'found' elements to explore new contexts and reach new audiences.
My photos were taken last night at a performance of 'The Body Electric',a new hybrid commission that uses music and light in conjunction with the 'found' element of Norwich's historic Norman Castle. The music is by Mukul Deora who is a multi-disciplinary artist from Mumbai, India. Deora has also performed at the Tate Modern in London and works with experimental sound installations. His musical style is electronica and his 2006 debut album 'Stray' reached number 12 in the Indian charts - his website has audio samples. The visual elements are by Shezad Dawood whose work, like Lou Harrison's, questions traditional assumptions about the role of art in contemporary society.
'The Body Electric' is the latest expression of a hybrid art form that started back in 1952 when, at the invitation of Lou Harrison, a 'concerted action' was staged by John Cage and friends at Black Mountain College, North Carolina. Mukul Deora and Shezad Dawood have shown that in 2008 there is an audience, a performance opportunity, and most importantly funding for this type of project. The Toyota Prius may not be saving the planet, but it has become remarkably popular. As Lou Harrison said - 'Don't put down the hybrids...'
I am sure Lou would be delighted to find more hybrids here, and to read about The Motor Electrichere. Photos (c) 2008 On an Overgrown Path. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Avant-garde composer Harry Partch dreamed of music so unusual and complex that it couldn’t be produced by existing instruments. So he invented an orchestra-full of bizarre instruments capable of splintering the musical octave into tiny fractions of sound.
It’s been a while, but the long-promised second issue of ‘eartrip’ is here. Included are interviews with Hugh Hopper and Alexander Hawkins, an audio feature on Politics and Jazz, a defence of John Zorn, and a large reviews section which covers many recent jazz/improv CD releases/re-issues, as well as George Lewis‘ excellent AACM book.
New Thing Productions Presents:
Tuesday September 30th, 2008 at 8 PM
EDGE Quartet
Metropolis Underground
615 S. Main Street Route 11 , backside of building
North Syracuse, NY
http://www.myspace.com/metropolisundergroundinc
The EDGE Quartet is:
Taylor Ho Bynum – cornet, flugelhorn
Andrew Drury – drum set Jason Kao Hwang – composer/violin, viola
Special Guest Joe Daley - tuba
Nested in the urban mountains of New York City, EDGE embraces both past and future with musical tales celebrating life and loss. Their instruments, resonant with human and animal overtones, sing through sharp lines vibrating between histories, cultures and genres. Their first CD Edge 2006 reached #14 on the national CMJ radio charts and Stories Before Within, recently released on Innova, hit #9 this past March. EDGE has been presented by the Vision Festival XI NYC , the National Bohemian Home Jazz Festival Detroit , An Die Music Baltimore , the Deep Listening Institute, Brooklyn College, the Stone and many other venues. Upcoming performances include Edgefest Ann Arbor , the Coastal Jazz and Blues Festival Vancouver and Casa del Popolo Festival Montreal.
Bill Dixon: 17 Musicians in Search of a Sound: Darfur Pitchforkmedia.com, IL - 1 hour ago He later became an educator, signing on as a music professor at Vermont's Bennington College, while recording sporadically with the likes of William Parker ...
Upcoming Dates:
20/9 Mats/Morgan duo
Musikmuseet
Sibylleg. 2, Stockholm 18:00
26/9 Mats/Morgan Band
Bass & Drum festival,
Folkungag. 84, Stockholm
Also performing: Terry Bozzio and more.
Complete program available soon.
http://www.bassndrum.se
13-20/10 DW clinic tour Morgan Ågren, Rickard Nettermalm, Eric Thyselius and more.
More info about where and when, available soon
26/10 Mats/Morgan Band
Montreal Drumfestival, Montreal
Also performing: Simon Philips, Lenny White and more.
See complete program here: http://www.myspace.com/montrealdrumfest
3/12 Mats/Morgan Band
Metropol
Köpmannag. 11, Härnösand
4/12 Mats/Morgan Band
Studion
Idunteatern, Umeå
5/12 Mats/Morgan Band
Musikhuset
Hamnplan 4, Örnsköldsvik
6/12 Mats/Morgan Band
Pipeline
Kyrkog. 6, Sundsvall
Morgan Ågren is recording a new CD with Swedish project Kaipa.
Morgan will also play on the upcoming CD by Jonas Lindgren (from
Fleshquartet) and Fredrik Thordendal (from Meshuggah)
www.morganagren.com
www.myspace.com/morganagren
The Microscopic Septet
Sept 2008: Cuneiform releases Lobster Leaps In, the first newly recorded Micros CD since 1998’s Beauty Based On Science. Fresh of a string of one-niters in Europe, the band went into the studio and recorded a set of classic Micros tunes, spanning the 12 years of their original incarnation, from “Almost Right” (number 3 in the Micros book) to more experimental tunes like “The Big Squeeze.” Long-time Micros fans celebrate the first new release in 20 years!
They will be re-reuniting and on the road again in Nov 2009.
Visit the Micros online for YouTube videos and audio from the new recording.
For those “in the know” we are offering a special Micros/Lobster Leaps In Artist Statement/History page, which tells the tale of how this CD came to be, and features additional mp3s from live recordings from gigs at venues like the (original) Knitting Factory, & the Village Gate. These are exclusively Micros “oddities” and will be changed from time to time.
Check it out: http://www.microscopicseptet.com/lli.history.htm
The Muffins
“THE MUFFINS currently have not one, but 2 new CDS in process now. THE MUFFINS are hoping to play at a NORTH AMERICAN festival during 2009 in addition to the RIO Festival in France on April 17.
Ask your favorite festival to book The Muffins - email paul@paulsears.net for more information”
Planeta Imaginario
Planeta Imaginario is looking for a manager, and people who would be interested in booking us for concerts outside of Spain. We are working on new songs for our next album we have the February/March as the ideal date. (We are going to record with the great Bob Drake.)
Some members of P.I. are playing in a band which plays the music of Frank Zappa, that will play around Spain in the next months.
Are busy preparing for their headline appearance at E-Live in Eindhoven,Netherlands on Saturday 11th October. http://e-live.groove.nl/
Steve Dinsdale has been busy recording drums for a Martin Archer project, and also taking part in the August Moon Jams in Sheffield, meeting some great free improvisors in the process.
Music Review | Philadelphia Orchestra New York Times, United States - 2 hours ago Jongen absorbed eclectic influences; his “Symphonie” blends Straussian orchestral writing with an organ part that reflects César Franck and Olivier Messiaen...
A Fresh Beethoven With an Exuberant ‘Ode to Joy’ New York Times, United States - 2 hours ago By ANTHONY TOMMASINI As music director of the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas has been a model of how to energize an American orchestra and ...
Nonfiction Reviews Publishers Weekly, NY - 59 minutes ago Music Quickens Time Daniel Barenboim. Verso, $24.95 (192p) ISBN 978-1-84467-287-5 Why does music have such universal appeal, and how does music help us ...
The Classical Music Network ConcertoNet, France - 20 minutes ago One must question whether Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy should be separated by 70 minutes from the Fugue, or whether the increasingly complex Ligeti Musica ...
On Interoceans, I Heart Lung blends first-take methods with Oblique Strategies: carefully composed, meticulously recorded pieces rooted in improvisation, revised and augmented over time. The results are a compelling vision of chaos and beauty as Chris Schlarb’s electric guitar drones and Tom Steck’s free-jazz drumming hold and flutter with shimmering acoustic guitars, soaring pedal steel and beautifully captured field recordings. When Kris Tiner’s trumpet follows Nels Cline’s electric sitar three minutes into “Interoceans II,” it’s like Don Cherry’s loving spirit doting on universal music drones.
I truly wish that it had been my lifelong dream to publish books about music, because it comes all too easily to me and I could have fulfilled my dream in short order. Unfortunately, in the late 1960s it became my passion to write music and get it performed, which 40 years later I still find a more challenging proposition. Writing a book is a solitary occupation that sometimes actually pays for itself; putting out a CD requires tremendous enthusiasm from performers and cooperation from sound engineers, plus a vast financial structure to make sure everyone gets paid, with virtually no money guaranteed to come back in return. Each book I publish seems like a cakewalk compared to the CDs I struggle like hell to put together. Yet had I put out 30 CDs in my life and no books, I would have been tickled pink with my career. Instead, I find myself writing a book now and then just to take up the slack.
In any case, the Cage book is basically finished, and I'm sending it off tomorrow. One of the topics I deal with in the chapter on the aftermath of 4'33" is something I got from electronic composer Paul Rudy at UMKC: the debate between the acousmatic composers and the soundscapers. I knew the word acousmatic, but I hadn't realized that it was a kind of official term for a certain approach to electronic music. (In fact, it seems to me that composers actually loooooove terms and -isms, except for postminimalism and totalism, because the latter two denote composers who write music that appeals to audiences, so it's imperative that those groups be marginalized at all costs, and denying that those terms mean anything is the quickest way to effect that.) But Paul tells me - and I'd like more independent verification on this, though I've found some scattered around the internet - that the acousmatic composers believe in using everyday acoustic sounds that are divorced from their sound sources and rendered unrecognizable, while the soundscape composers like to record environmental sounds that are evocative of their origins. Paul is one of the composers who finds this an idle academic argument, as indeed it seems to be, and whose music moves back and forth between deliberate evocation and abstraction as a structural element; he's pointed me to Jonty Harrison as a kindred spirit. This seems to be a particularly big issue in Canada, where the acousmaticians (if that is the proper term) are centered in Montreal, and the soundscapers on the West Coast, led by the indomitable R. Murray Schafer. This is an issue that seems to have mainly been written about in academia if at all, and while I get the point, my understanding of the differences is lacking in nuance. I'd be curious as to my readers' knowledge of these categories.
Sur On Reade Street – enregistré à New York en 2006 –, Frode Gjerstad, William Parker et Hamid Drake remettent ça : improvisation dont l'imagination débordante de qui la mène aide à l'édification d'un free jazz ne s'interdisant ni recours au swing (Drake, en force sur The Street) ni subtiles digressions latines (The People).
A l'alto en ouverture et fermeture, Gjerstad passe à la clarinette sur The Houses, pièce à la noirceur instable changée bientôt en tranquilité infaillible, qui finit de diversifier le propos d'un échange toujours aussi – voire, plus – inspiré.
CD: 01/ The Street 02/ The Houses 03/ The People >>> Frode Gjerstad with William Parker & Hamid Drake - On Reade Street - 2008 - FMR.
Chaslin Chats About Wuthering Heights PlaybillArts, NY - 54 minutes ago Even though he was, for a time, associated with Pierre Boulez (another composer/conductor) and the Paris contemporary music group Ensemble Intercontemporain ...
Lukas Ligeti plays Eyedrum on Wed., Oct. 1 Creative Loafing Atlanta, GA - 42 minutes ago The music is part composed / part improvised, and made to be played live on electronic percussion. Local percussionist / composer Klimchak opens the show ...
Morphoses, Sadler's Wells, London Independent, UK - 2 hours ago Four couples dance to a selection of Ligeti piano pieces, from an intricate opening to sleek solos and pas de deux. Beatriz Stix-Brunell floats through her ...
Personal Demons, Powerful Messages New York Sun, United States - 1 hour ago Perhaps Ms. Stratas's most significant contribution to music was her espousal of the works of Kurt Weill. Befriending Lotte Lenya, about whom she rather ...
Jeremy Denk gets it right, and writes it well, again:
Brahms has many virtues; but certainly his greatest contribution to the history of culture is his demonstration that obesity can be musically satisfying.
Classical Pick of the Week: Salonen's Last First Concert LAist, CA - 47 minutes ago This week is the opening gala at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, with music from Stravinsky, Adams, Sondheim, and Ligeti performed with some familiar faces, ...
View our RSS feed using Rocketinfo: Audiophile Audition - 1 hour ago I believe the only duplication on that one is the closing brief Lutoslawski selection here. The ultra-colorful Rachmaninoff Second Suite for Two Pianos has ...
-- Liner Notes -- "OM per orchestra" op. 12 was commissioned by the Hessicher Rundfunk for the 1968 Darmstadt Holiday Course for New Music, and was given its first performance by the Hessischer Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra under Hermann Michael with Robert Wittinger (as the soloist in the "coda") on the large gong. In the score it says in 14 different languages: "This difficult gong beat can only be performed by the composer; for this reason he should be invited to every performance!" This gong beat represents as it were the nadir of Wittinger's formal connective technique.
Walking through a street festival in a Frankfurt neighborhood this afternoon, I passed by a group of men (four Germans, one American) playing New Orleans Jazz in a respectable imitation of the earliest recorded examples. They were very serious students of the repertoire and style, and had very carefully collected instruments that were either originals or copies of instruments that would have been played in that era. Although performing at a high level, these musicians were not doing it for the pay, but as a passionate hobby, amateurs in the best sense of the word. Chatting with one of them, it was made clear to me that their interest was in a historically specific and closed repertoire and, indeed, he had complaints about the "inauthentic" performing style of contemporary New Orleans musicians.
This group — and there must be many hundreds just like it around the world — was engaging in a micromusical practice, and one similar in ways and means to that found in groups engaged with many other repertoires. These may be defined in terms of style, locality, ethnicity*, or historicity. In the 70s and 80s, I had contacts with the early music scene (which some even identified as a "movement") which, while having a substantial professional element, was dominated by amateurs, and amateurs and professional alike these shared the intense committment shown by the the musicians I met today in creating an "authentic" reconstruction of a regional and historical style and repertoire, pointedly distinct from contemporary art music. The conservation and persistence of the historical, "classical", concert music repertoire, the interest in historical musics, and the interest in folk and popular western musics as well as non-western repertoire all represent, in western musical life, challenges to a pre-eminent status of contemporary art music. (Interestingly, here in Germany, there are groups devoted to overtone and minimal music which, inspired by examples from contemporary music (including Stockhausen and Terry Riley), have themselves become conservators.)
In a musical environment in which so many micromusics (and some not-so micros, like popular commercial music) are sustained, a contemporary art music no longer associated with the media and instruments of social, economic and political power and authority can only thrive — that is to say, not be reduced to simply another micromusic — through an assertion of independence from the constraints found in micromusics which tend to, indeed may often be defined by, an essential conservatism. On the one hand, this assertion can take the form of absolute freedom with regard to referencing or borrowing from all of these repertoires, cheerfully ignoring the most carefully constructed boundaries of musical conduct. On the other hand, the independence is manifest in an incommensurability with existing musical materials and practices. _____ * It can even be a historically falsified ethnicity, as was the case in the Barbershop singing movement, which for many years denied origins of the style in African-American communities.
Email received from Sergio Mims - 'Pierre Boulez is Mr. Cool - I'm surprised this look didn't catch on. It works for me'.>Many thanks for the fascinating link Sergio. But I have some bad news for you. You will see from the credits that John Drummond directed that wonderful BBC footage. But this passage in Drummond's autobiography Tainted by Experience suggests that the Mr. Cool image didn't work for Pierre.
'Boulez was about to begin rehearsing a new production of Alban Berg’sWozzeck in Frankfurt, to be directed by Wieland Wagner. He asked me to join him there. For a few days I stayed in a preposterous former grand-ducal hunting lodge in the Taunus hills outside Frankfurt, and drove back and forth with Boulez to the daily rehearsals. I cannot claim that Wieland Wagner made a great impression. He was certainly a great director, but not demonstrative. Most of his conversations with the Wozzeck, Walter Berry, were tête à tête and inaudible.
I spent more time watching the Marie, Anja Silja – at that time Wagner’s mistress – who wore thigh-length suede boots, had a mane of tawny hair, and exuded the Germanic sexuality typified by Dietrich or Hildegard Neff. What was unforgettable was the clarity and precision of Boulez’s conducting, and his total control over the orchestra and singers. Wozzeck was the one work of the Second Viennese school that I knew well, and I already rated it above all other twentieth-century operas. But here I felt confronted by the reality of the piece.
Boulez was a delightful companion – easy to be with and full of catty quips, especially about the state of music in France and those who ran it – though I had initially been daunted by merely being with him. As I saw more of him, I was puzzled by the contradictions of his personality. He was totally accessible and charming, but gave a strong sense of intangibility. I knew nothing of his private life, and rather doubted that he had one. He seemed totally dedicated to music, and totally sure of what he wanted to do. Over the years he has mellowed considerably, becoming much warmer and more relaxed, but his sense of focus is still there, and no one I have ever met wastes less time. Every moment has to be grist to the musical mill.'
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
University of Richmond’s Modlin Center for the Arts offers some fabulous extra features on their website.
They write their own blog; they have their own “audience review” section of the website (click here to read the amazingly mixed audience reviews from our last concert; some highlights: “It sound like an orchestra tuning up to me” and “eighth blackbird is to music what Picasso was to painting”); and they offer post-concert talkback sessions as “modcasts“.
Radulescu was born in Bucharest, where he studied the violin privately with Nina Alexandrescu, a pupil of Enescu, and later studied composition at the Bucharest Academy of Music MA 1969 , where his teachers included Niculescu, Olah and Stroe, some of the leading figures of the newly emerging avant garde Toop 2001 . Upon graduation Radulescu left Romania for the west, and settled in Paris. One of the first works to be completed there though the concept had come to him in Romania was Credo for nine cellos, the first work to employ his spectral techniques. This technique comprises variable distribution of the spectral energy, synthesis of the global sound sources, micro- and macro-form as sound-process, four simultaneous layers of perception and of speed, and spectral scordaturae, i.e. rows of unequal intervals corresponding to harmonic scales. cite this quote In the early 1970s he attended classes given by Cage, Ligeti, Stockhausen, and Xenakis at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, and by Ferrari and Kagel in Cologne; later, from 1979 to 1981, he studied computer-assisted composition and psycho-acoustics at IRCAM.
The pianist, who is in her early 30s, was sitting in her Hell’s Kitchen apartment on a recent Saturday morning. She was still excited about the evening before, when a full house of European tourists had sat in rapt attention during the performance. And she had other reasons to feel cheerful. The week before was spent in Milan, where Ms. Yamamoto appeared as part of a soulful sextet led by the indefatigable bassist William Parker. And there was her new album, “Redwoods,” a sparkling trio session that complements a release from earlier this summer, “Duologue.” Both were released on the Brooklyn-based label AUM Fidelity.
There are audio samples of Tarik O'Regan's music on his website. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Five Messiaen events to see Chicago Tribune, United States - 2 hours ago The most extensive festival of Messiaen's music to be given anywhere in the US this year, the centenary celebration sponsored by the University of Chicago's ...
Keeping the faith Chicago Tribune, United States - 2 hours ago Too little of Messiaen's music finds its way into concert halls with any regularity. There was a flurry of recordings up to and following his death in 1992, ...
10 Messiaen discs to check out Chicago Tribune, United States - 2 hours ago By Alan G. Artner Tribune critic Our 80th-birthday Messiaen discography began with indispensable LPs. His own recordings of a quarter-century of organ music...
Barry Weisblat / Alfredo Costa Monteiro / Ernesto Rodrigues - Diafon
(Creative Sources)
- Darren Bergstein
Peter Baumgartner / Christoph Schiller Peter Baumgartner / Christoph Schiller - Savagnières
(Creative Sources)
- Darren Bergstein
Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) - Spacecraft / Unified Patchwork Theory
(Alga Marghen)
- Darren Bergstein
Wolfgang Schliemann / Michael Vorfeld Wolfgang Schliemann / Michael Vorfeld - Alle Neune: Rheinländer Partie
(Creative Sources Recordings)
- Darren Bergstein
Doug Theriault / Bryan Eubanks Doug Theriault / Bryan Eubanks - Big Clouds in the Sky Today
(Creative Sources)
- Darren Bergstein
Joseba Irazoki Joseba Irazoki - Olatuetan
(Creative Sources)
- Darren Bergstein
Mark Feldman Mark Feldman - Music For Violin Alone
(Tzadik)
- Max Schaefer
Ricardo Arias / Günter Müller / Hans Tammen Ricardo Arias / Günter Müller / Hans Tammen - Intersecting A Cone with A Plane
(Creative Sources Recordings)
- Darren Bergstein
Luigi Nono Luigi Nono - Guai ai gelidi mostri / Quando stanno morendo. Diario polacco No. 2
(NEOS Music)
- Wyman Brantley
We have a new bass layer (surprise!) and we have our first gig with him on November 1st at the Laughing Goat, 1709 Pearl Street in Boulder Colorado at 8:30.
Our new bass player is John Grigsby, and he’s also a very gifted animator. You can see his work on youtube if you search “Grigsby animation.”
Slowly, we are preparing a new cd. There have been whispers that Elaine diFalco will be writing a tune with Mark Harris in mind. The world halts.
Richard Leo Johnson
Richard is working on the final aspects of his next release based on yet another fictional character named Duval Rey. Duval was a blind Creole street musician (one man band) in New Orleans. He encountered Vernon McAlister while performing on the street on a day in the early 1950s.
Duval was inspired by the brief encounter to compose a song cycle which transcends genre or convention. The album will be a solo effort as a one man band with the primary instrument an antique tenor banjo. The CD should be finished and mastered by Spring of 2009.
Richard is also having an exhibit of photographs from the Yucatan in Savannah GA., from Sept 27th until mid Oct. at Chroma Gallery. Here is a link.
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs036/1101390055491/archive/1102226048212.html
He composed and recorded original music for the opening event and will perform live as well.
Jesse Krakow (Time of Orchids, Fast ‘N Bulbous: The Captain Beefheart Project) has been playing with Shudder To Think on their recent reunion tour. Past dates included two nights at The Virgin Mobile Festival (in MD and Canada, respectively), and one at The Park West in Chicago (with Cheer-Accident) opening. The remaining dates are:
October 3rd @ TLA, Philadelphia
October 4th @ Webster Hall, NYC
October 10th @ 9:30 Club, DC w/ Pattern Is Movement
October 11th @ Paradise Rock Club, Boston
October 25th @ Voodoo Fest, New Orleans
October 30th @ The Shoebox, Seattle w/ The Dead Science
November 1st @ El Rey, Los Angeles
November 2nd @ The Fillmore, San Francisco
More dates to come….Check out www.myspace.com/shuddertothink for more info. You can also check out some live clips and interviews on www.spin.com.
In addition to completing the new Fast ‘N Bulbous record - to be released in January ‘09 on Cuneiform and followed by a European tour, Jesse has been working on his rock comedy/opera “Rock Bottom”, to (hopefully) be completed in the spring of 2009. Check out www.myspace.com/jessekrakow for more info.
And generally he is doing quite well and is very happy. He hopes you are too.
THE MUSICAL BOX:
DAVID MYERS - keyboards/guitar/voice
FRANÇOIS GAGNON - guitars
GREGG BENDIAN – drums/percussion
DENIS GAGNE – lead voice
SÉBASTIEN LAMOTHE – bass/guitars/voice
A Trick of the Tail - European Tour (Fall 2008)
Sep 27 - Konserthus, Oslo (Norway)
Sep 28 - Cirkus, Stockholm (Sweden)
Oct 01 - CCH Saal 2, Hamburg (Germany)
Oct 02 - Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt (Germany)
Oct 03 - Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt (Germany)
Oct 04 - Liederhalle, Stuttgart (Germany)
Oct 05 - Theatre de Beaulieu, Lausanne (Switzerland)
Oct 08 - Vredenberg [Leidsche Rijn], Utrecht (Netherlands)
Oct 09 - Theater am Marientor, Duisburg (Germany)
Oct 10 - De Vereeniging, Nijmegen (Germany)
Oct 11 - Le Forum, Leige (Belgium)
Oct 12 - Cirque Royal, Bruxelles (Belgium)
Oct 14 - Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool (UK)
Oct 15 - SECC, Glasgow (UK)
Oct 17 - Apollo Theatre, Manchester (UK)
Oct 18 - Guild Hall, Portsmouth (UK)
Oct 22 - Royal Centre, Nottingham (UK)
Oct 24 - Fairfield Halls, Croydon (UK)
Oct 25 - Colston Hall, Bristol (UK)
Oct 27 - Grugahalle, Essen (Germany)
Oct 29 - Spodek Hall, Katowice (Poland)
Oct 31 – Z7, Prateln [Basel] (Switzerland)
Nov 01 – Z7, Prateln [Basel] (Switzerland)
Nov 03 - Olympia Theatre, Paris (France)
Nov 05 - Palabam, Mantova (Italy)
Nov 07 - Allianz Teatro, Milano (Italy)
Nov 08 - Gran Teatro, Rome (Italy)
Nov 09 - Palatour, Bitritto [Bari] (Italy)
Nov 11 - Teatro Luna, Isle of Sardinia (Italy)
Band website: www.themusicalbox.net
Tickets: www.wiventertainment.de
- Past big shows/festivals played somewhat recently
The Musical Box replaced YES who cancelled their 400th Anniversary of Quebec performance last month. The Mahavishnu Project performed at the Trinumeral Fest in Asheville NC, along with (for reasons unknown to us), a plethora of Hip-Hop acts.
- Youtube (and the like) links to live performance footage or other video content
The Mahavishnu Project performs “Resolution (One Word)” from VishnuFest 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxAJYJNaknU
- Upcoming projects/recordings
The Mahavishnu Project is featured prominently on the new release, “Mahavishnu Re-Defined.” The MP perform “Smile of the Beyond”, “Trilogy Pt. 2″ and “Sanctuary”.
Gregg has recently released the critically acclaimed “Research (Tiny Useful Secrets)” on the Aggregate Music label. The disc of ten innovative solo percussion works is available at www.greggbendian.com as well as at www.waysidemusic.com
Australian dancer wins top choreography prize The Australian, Australia - 4 hours ago AUSTRALIAN dancer Adam Linder firmly established himself as a rising star in the world of choreography today when he won a top British prize with just his ...
Symphony finds a Latin beat with bandoneon Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WI - 4 hours ago He studied at the Puerto Rico Conservatory, the University of Puerto Rico, the University of London, the Royal College of Music and with Gyorgy Ligeti in ...
Previn isn't scaling back Boston Globe, United States - 1 hour ago You've had a lot of music in Boston lately by Elliott Carter. That's not conservative. That's not tonal. I don't write that way. I wish I could but I can't. ...
Reading Symphony Orchestra's Constantine takes control Reading Eagle, PA - 2 hours ago By Susan L. Peña Reading, PA - Having completed his first season with the Reading Symphony Orchestra, music director Andrew Constantine is enthusiastic ...
Pieces begin to stir as guests pass by Akron Beacon Journal, OH - 1 hour ago ''I wanted to do chance music, and Iannis Xenakis (the Greek/French modernist composer who theorizes that an artistic expression can be realized ...
Autumn festival to feature a wide range of chamber music Deseret News, UT - 57 minutes ago ... range of chamber music, which this year will run the spectrum from Mozart and Beethoven to Leonard Bernstein, Ernst von Dohnanyi and Olivier Messiaen. ...
Classical Los Angeles Times, CA - 11 minutes ago Santa Cecilia Orchestra: Classical Music Quartet The orchestra performs music inspired by the streets of Los Angeles in conjunction with the museum's "All ...
Unclassified: Lou Reed and Ulrich Krieger
World Premiere
“[Lou Reed] has gotten so far beyond us that he has come around to meet us from the other side.” Spin
Rock music icon Lou Reed and sonic experimentalist Ulrich Krieger take the stage together for the first time to improvise music and make soundscapes. The pair use guitars, saxophones and an array of electronic treatments to venture into deep acoustic space, drawing on new music, free jazz, avant-rock, noise and ambient in a set of intense conceptual pieces and intuitive improvisations. The artists first met in 2002 for the premiere of Krieger’s transcription and arrangement of Metal Machine Music — Reed’s seminal guitar feedback epic — for the chamber orchestra Zeitkratzer. More recently, Reed has been touring a new stage version of his 1973 rock oratorio Berlin, a work that was the subject of the stunning concert film by Julian Schnabel released this summer. Krieger, who has collaborated with artists from Reed and Lee Ranaldo to Phill Niblock and Merzbow, has been a member of CalArts‘ music faculty since last fall.
Honeck starts on a high note Pittsburgh Post Gazette, PA - 6 hours ago With star violinist Joshua Bell joining in the festivities for Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, the new music director started on a bright note. ...
Honeck boldly energizes PSO renaissance Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, PA - 7 hours ago By Mark Kanny Promise was fulfilled Friday night at Heinz Hall when Manfred Honeck began his tenure as music director with an exhilarating and deeply ...
Esa-Pekka Salonen begins his swan song OCRegister, CA - 1 hour ago But perhaps his success with new music will be best remembered. When Salonen conducted new music, by Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Adams, himself and many others, ...
The Avant Garde Project is a series of 20th-century classical-experimental- electroacoustic torrents digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today. This is wild stuff, so check it out if you’ve never heard this sort of music before. The analog rig used to extract the sound from the grooves is near state-of-the-art, producing almost none of the tracking distortion or surface noise normally associated with LPs.
AGP1-116 are now available for direct download in the archive at www.avantgardeproject.org
AGP117-118 and other recent AGP installments are also available at http://thepiratebay.org/user/loudav
=======================================
AGP119 features the music of Lejaren Hiller, who collaborated with John Cage on HPSCHD in the last installment. This installment includes a complete transcription of a Turnabout LP devoted to Hiller (TV-S 34536), and is filled out with the two Hiller tracks from an LP in the Avant Garde series on Deutsche Grammophon. The rest of that LP will be included in AGP120 next week.
The Turnabout LP is in very good condition but has the surface noise characteristic of most releases on that label. I was able to clean up most of it with some moderate de-clicking, but there is some truly atrocious pressing noise in the last several minutes of track 01 and in the last minute or two of track 03. You’ll have to blame Turnabout for that. BTW, this LP appears to be seriously rare–$60 is being asked for the only copy I could find anywhere on the internet.
The other two tracks are two of four versions of a computer-generated composition. These tracks are better recorded and come from a better LP pressing. The torrent includes a PDF file with scans of the liner notes from both LPs.
01 - Twelve-Tone Variations for Piano, 1954 [31:08]
(1:34, 5:10, 6:31, 5:22, 11:56)
02 - Machine Music for Piano, Percussion, and Tape, 1964 [13:04]
03 - Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano, 1970 [15:39]
(3:32, 7:54, 3:56)
04 - Algorithms I, Version I [9:16]
05 - Algorithms I, Version IV [9:24]
Equipment used for A/D conversion: Lyra Helikon phono cartridge, Linn LP12/Lingo turntable, Linn Ittok tonearm, Audioquest LeoPard tonearm cable, PS Audio PS2 preamplifier, Kimber PBJ interconnect, M-Audio Audiophile USB A/D converter.
NOTE: To the best of my knowledge, these recordings are currently out of print. If you know otherwise, please let me know ASAP, as I do not wish any artists to be deprived of the royalties that they so richly deserve.
DAVID ORNETTE CHERRY (Friday) Mr. Cherry, son of the incisive trumpeter Don Cherry, pursues a cooler-tempered version of the avant-garde aesthetic that would seem to be his chief inheritance. Playing piano and contributing compositions here, he leads the Ensemble for Improvisers, with Roy Campbell Jr. on trumpet, Tony Falanga on bass and Willie Jones III on drums. At 7 p.m., Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street, Chelsea, (212) 620-5000, Ext. 344, rmanyc.org; $20. (Chinen)
CLAUDIA QUINTET (Friday and Saturday) This improvising chamber ensemble pursues texturally oriented and often contrapuntal exploration; Mr. Hollenbeck’s drumming is one color on a palette that also includes Chris Speed’s clarinet and tenor saxophone, Ted Reichman’s accordion, Ted Reichman’s accordion, John Hebert’s bass and Matt Moran’s vibraphone. Friday at 8 and 10 p.m., Barbès, 376 Ninth Street, at Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (347) 422-0248, barbesbrooklyn.com; cover, $10. Saturday at 9 and 10:30 p.m., Cornelia Street Café, 29 Cornelia Street, West Village, (212) 989-9319, corneliastreetcafe.com; cover, $10, with a one-drink minimum. (Chinen)
FESTIVAL OF NEW TRUMPET MUSIC (Friday through Sunday) The sixth edition of this eclectic affair culminates in tributes to Woody Shaw. On Friday three strikingly different trumpeters — Brian Lynch, Terell Stafford and Paolo Fresu — explore the Afro-Caribbean dimension of Shaw’s music. Saturday will feature a repertory ensemble led by one of his former sidemen, the drummer Victor Lewis. And on Sunday the festival’s founder, Dave Douglas, teams up with his fellow trumpeters Randy Brecker and Josh Evans. At 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., with an 11:30 set on Friday and Saturday, Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-2232, jazzstandard.net; cover, $30. (Chinen)
DONNY MCCASLIN TRIO (Tuesday) The tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin has recorded a handful of rewarding albums with chamberlike ensembles, but on his excellent new release, “Recommended Tools” (Greenleaf), he tacks in the other direction, leading a muscular trio with bass and drums. At 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-2232, jazzstandard.net; cover, $20.
MYRA MELFORD/HENRY THREADGILL (Thursday) Each of these composers specializes in manipulations of timbre, and in a cross-disciplinary approach established in the post-1960s avant-garde. Appearing on the Interpretations concert series, they each present new works: “Happy Whistlings,” with Ms. Melford on piano, Matana Roberts on alto saxophone, Mary Halvorson on guitar and Harris Eisenstadt on percussion; and “Fate Cues,” with Mr. Threadgill on saxophones and flute, leading both his regular ensemble Zooid and the Talujon Percussion Quartet. At 8 p.m., Roulette, 20 Greene Street, near Grand Street, SoHo, (212) 219-8242, roulette.org; $15; $10 for students.
SEX MOB (Saturday) Two years ago this rambunctious band released “Sexotica” (Thirsty Ear), a mostly tongue-in-cheek tribute to the lounge music of Martin Denny. Revisiting the premise here, the group — which still features Steven Bernstein on slide trumpet, Briggan Krauss on alto saxophone, Tony Scherr on bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums — recruits a reliable sonic fabulist, D.J. Olive. At 8 p.m., Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street, at Pitt Street, Lower East Side, (212) 598-0400, henrystreet.org/arts; $12. (Chinen)
Jason Crumer - Burning In Hell
Noise artist, Jason Crumer, hails from Oakland, CA and has created one of the best noise records of the year…
Fixture for Toxins - The Night Hoovers over Us Again
With their loose stringed, sludgy and noisy mix of industrial tone, zero rock, noise, slamming feedback fuzzed beats and muffled vocals the one man project of Fixture for Toxins literal straps you to a work bench and audibly attacks you again and again with this 20 minute ep.
Judging by the site traffic today applause between movements at concerts is a hotter topic than tuxedos. So I thought it would be interesting to have a show of hands on the question. At the top of the right side-bar is one of those deeply trendy voting widgets. Have your say before voting ends next week.
Now for another question. Elsewhere On An Overgrown Path there is a funny story about applause in the wrong place. The subject of that story is the gentleman wearing spectacles in the front row of the session photo below. But identifying him alone is too easy. So who will be the first reader to tell us who he is, and who it is next to him in the front row nearest the camera?
Remember this quiz? Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Many of this year's BBC Proms were marred by meaningless dribbles of applause between movements. I know there is no rule saying no applause between movements. But, by the same token, there is no rule saying wind should not be broken by members of the audience during the performance.
The only consolation was that the applause virus was confined to the Proms, meaning that it appeared in just one location for a couple of months a year. But now comes very bad news. Tonights' BBC Radio 3 recording from the Edinburgh Festival with Ivan Fischer conducting the Budapest Festival Orchestra in the Usher Hall featured the dreaded applause between the movements of the Brahms/Schoenberg Piano Quartet in G minor.
Something needs to be done quickly to stop this potentially fatal virus spreading world-wide. The only links between the Proms and the Edinburgh Festival concert were that both were relayed on BBC Radio 3 and both were introduced by Petroc Trelawny. That must mean a lengthy quarantine period for both presenter and radio station.
You can now vote on whether applause between movements is a bad thing in the poll at the top of the right-hand side bar. After which this thread can only lead Into Great Silence. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
That great visionary Carl Nielsen wrote'even if we reached agreement on the fact that now the best and most beautiful has been achieved, mankind thirsting more for life and adventure than perception, would rise and shout in one voice: give us something else, give us something new'. Today I celebrate two projects that bring something else and something new; both are for the piano and both from across the Atlantic.
Pianist Andrew Rangell contributes the 'something else' with the new CD seen above which ranges from Gibbons and Tomkins to a piano arrangement of the fugue from Beethoven's Op. 131 String Quartet. It was Pablo Casals who said'the art of interpretation is not to play what is written' and I'm happy to subscribe to that philosophy as well as hugely enjoying authentic instrument performances of early music. There have been many notable examples of early music played on the piano ranging from Glenn Gould's Sweelinck to Angela Hewitt's Couperin and Alexandre Tharaud's Rameau. The received wisdom that early music performed on the piano is a form of blasphemy is just more confirmation of the late Mauriccio Kagel's view that 'the norms of musical life are only social conventions'.
In A Bridge to Bach Andrew Rangell explores the connections between the music of the seventeenth century and that of Bach. Rangell returned to the concert platform in 1999 after a long absence due to a hand injury. He is a musical maverick and this is a wonderfully rewarding CD which comes from the independent Bridge Records. We desperately need more free-thinkers like Sarah Cahill and Andrew Rangell to give us something else - something new.
Read Antal Dorati and Jordi Savall on inner peace here. Review copy of A Bridge to Bach was purchased from an Amazon reseller. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
1981 LP sleeve of Brahms Double Concerto with Zino Francescatti and Pierre Fournier accompanied by Bruno Walter and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. The striking cover is by Henrietta Condak who is listed as one of the notable women working in design 1900-1980. I don't believe the graphics ever transferred to the CD jewel box, and strangely the recording itself, which was made in 1960, doesn't seem to have fared too well in the CD catalogue. My copy of the CBS LP has beautifully silent Dutch pressings as opposed to the gritty surfaces of American CBS records of the period. More vinyl heaven here and more art of typography here.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
BBC4 TV is showing Christopher Nupen's film of Jacqueline du Pré, which includes her performing the Elgar Concerto, tonight (Sept 26) at 7.30 UK time. This means it will be available until October 2 on i-Player. This is the first in a BBC4 series of Nupen's legendary documentaries about musicians. The others portray Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Evgeny Kissin and Nathan Milstein, as well as a film about Amman-born musician Karim Said, a protégé of Daniel Barenboim's. Jackie also made a classic recording of the Beethoven Sonatas with Barenboim, which is a nice cue for Elgar carrying on Beethoven's business.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Die tote stadt. Opera de Rhin, Strasbourg 1999. Director: Inga Levant. Cast: Angela Denoke (Marie/Marietta), Torsten Kerl (Paul), Birgitta Svendén. Conductor: Jan Latham-König. Further information here.
Composed when he was 23, Erich Wolfgang Korngold´s opera Die Tote Stadt from 1920 quickly went on to become one of the most popular operas of the 1920´s, the atmosphere of new beginnings probably resonating well with post-world war one audiences. Since then, performances have been rather infrequent and the opera never really seems to have made it into the main circuit. However, recently a minor Die Tote Stadt revival seems to be ongoing, with performances in both San Francisco, London, Vienna, Salzburg and Barcelona.
Any discussion on Die Tote Stadt seems to end up in a pro vs. con discussion of Korngold´s abilities as a composer. As I don´t have any particular new insights compared to the vast insights (most of which are not particularly original either) already available on the internet, I will refrain from discussing this subject. The work is what it is - a densely textured late-romantic composition with multiple influences from Korngold´s contemporaries, Richard Strauss in particular.
Basically, Die Tote Stadt is an innner psychological drama about one man´s overwhelming obsession with his dead wife: The man, Paul, meets a young woman, the dancer Marietta, with an uncanny resemblance to his dead wife, Marie. A hallucinatory relationship with a disastrous outcome when Paul appears to kill Marietta. Paul, however, comes to realize that he has been living in the illusory past and resolves to leave Bruges, Die Tote Stadt (the dead city), to start a new life.
The production is modern, Inga Levant apparently being one of those stage directors who prefer stuffing the stage with all kinds of symbols, dolls, skeletons as well as common rubbish as opposed to the stylish minimalism of a Willy Decker. Marietta appears to become pregnant and in the end, Paul slits his wrists and collapses, apparently unable to put the past behind him after all.
The leads are two singers, closely associated with their parts - Angela Denoke and Torsten Kerl. Angela Denoke´s lyrical soprano and comitted acting makes her entirely believable as the dancer Marietta while Torsten Kerl is a good fit for the rather strange and obsessive Paul, a part requiring the stamina of a Wagner helden-tenor. Beautifully conducted by Latham-König.
Just bought netbook for mobility and trying it out now - live blogging from the pub... well - I missed Bartley and Kitching last night - buried in wires/cables trying to get my networks up and running at the new house... And I was going to see Sonny Simmons tonight in Sheffield - alas, that's gone down as well... Never mind - looking forward to the London Jazz Festival - most of it of no interest to me but managed to book three nights in succession - Keith Tippett, Peter Brotzmann and Rudresh Mahanthappa... may try some live blogging during the sessions if I can find wifi points adjacent... Some music back up here asap... watch this space etc...
Just realised that the landlord of this establishment bears a resemblance to Thurston Moore... Increasing I've been feeling like Old Tom Moore (from the bummer's shore)... But the worst of the move is now over...
Like the Lourdes of new music, the Warsaw Autumn festival yielded a few miracles this past week, at least from my perspective. The most notable has to be the as yet wholly unreported return of Markus Stockhausen to performing his father's music.
MusikFabrik was set to perform Michaels Reise from DONNERSTAG, but the trumpet soloist Marco Blaauw injured his lip a week before the Warsaw date. He called Markus and asked him to fill in on the show, and with no arm twisting, Markus agreed! He has not performed his father's music at all since 2001, and Michaels Reise is a hell of a way to get back in the Stockhausen saddle. It's an excruciating trumpet part, and it was an absolute joy to hear Markus playing this music again.
The 2nd miracle, to my eye, was the audience at the Torwar, which as best I can tell is usually used for rock concerts and sporting events. The 800 seats that were put on the floor were all completely filled, and with people of all ages. There were groups of teenagers giggling and having a night out. The concert was the Polish premiere of Cosmic Pulses, and having just presented the US Premiere of the same piece only 10 days earlier, I couldn't help but be astonished all over again at the sheer appetite for music that Europeans have. To say we had 1/10th the turnout in Omaha would be putting it kindly. (NOTE: The Omaha audience did respond to the piece more enthusiastically than the Polish one, however)
Tonight, the orchestral version of Hymnen will be performed on the festival (in an old vodka factory, of all places). With the Berlin performance of Gruppen kicking off the week, one can say Stockhausen is alive and well in Europe.
NOTE: Marco Blaauw and Markus Stockhausen performed in a trumpet quartet for a few years, and Stockhausen wrote Trompetent for them. dung will perform the piece this Saturday at St. Mark's on the Bowery, as part of the Festival of New Trumpet Music.
1) More critics, 2) The New York Times classical music reporter, 3) the top administrator of the Cleveland Orchestra, 4) the Orchestra's board chairman, and 5) the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer itself weigh in on the defenestration of Don Rosenberg (left -- Allison Carey/The Plain Dealer), senior classical music critic of the Plain Dealer, by his own newspaper:
1 -- In addition to those fine critics and music writers we've linked to previously, Russell Platt of The New Yorker (scroll down), the distinguished author and scholar Harvey Sachs, and Janelle Gelfand of the Cincinnati Enquirer have all now posted pieces. Baltimore's Tim Smith, who first sounded the alarm, has offered a follow-up. Former Chicago critic (and now Chicago record producer) Marc Geelhoed has offered his perspective. [Note: Marc's site resembles mine, or rather mine resembles his -- but we are NOT the same person! ;-) ]
Martin Bernheimer, something of a legend in his decades-long career on both coasts of the U.S. posted the following, in toto, at Tim's Smith's site:
"This is horrifying and sad. Also, I fear, a sign of the times. I had some, er, issues with Zubin Mehta and the Philharmonic during my long tenure at the Los Angeles Times.My editors and publisher always defended/supported me, even when it hurt. Always grateful for that."
And many others at Tim Smith's page are engaging in a quite lively exchange in the Comments section.
MusicalAmerica.com's editor Susan Elliott has a customarily tough take -- "Cleveland Critic Deemed Too Critical" -- on hersite (paid subscription required). Calling Don Rosenberg "among the most respected music critics in the business," Susan reports that in addition to telling her "we never comment on this sort of thing," Plain Dealer editor Susan Goldberg "would neither confirm nor deny that she had been pressured by the orchestra to make the move; the newspaper's current and immediate past publishers -- Terrance E.Z. Egger and Alex Machaskee -- both serve on the orchestra's board of directors."
2 -- Dan Wakin of The New York Times has a news story today (appeared online at nytimes.com on Wednesday Sep. 24 and in the hard copy of the paper on Friday Sep. 25) in the paper's "Arts" section on Don's demotion. The late Theodore M. Bernstein would have given the copy editor who wrote the headline a "winner" designation: "Music Critic vs. Maestro: One Loses His Beat."
Dan also has the first quotes from Don on his situation that I have seen:
• “They’ve taken my career away from me,” said Mr. Rosenberg, 56, who has covered the orchestra for 28 years, first for The Akron Beacon Journal and then for The Plain Dealer since 1992.
• By Mr. Rosenberg’s account he met with [Plain Dealer editor Susan] Goldberg, who has been editor of the paper for a little over a year, on Sept. 17. “She called me in and said they were making a change, and I would no longer be covering the Cleveland Orchestra,” Mr. Rosenberg recounted.
She told him that the “situation had become untenable for the newspaper,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “She said my reviews were unfair, and I was attacking the orchestra.” Ms. Goldberg also said that she wanted broader coverage of the orchestra, he added. “I don’t know what that means. In the 16 years I’ve been here I’ve written every kind of story imaginable.”
• Mr. Rosenberg said that after Ms. Goldberg took over as editor, letters criticizing his views on Mr. Welser-Möst continued to come in, and that orchestra executives including the executive director, Gary Hanson, expressed concern about the coverage — “which means me,” Mr. Rosenberg added.
• “He’s a highly competent conductor who is most proficient in opera and choral works,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “In the purely orchestral repertoire he’s extremely erratic and often vague in interpretive terms. I think this is a case of an extraordinary orchestra with an ordinary conductor.”
3 -- Gary Hanson (left), executive director of The Cleveland Orchestra, has caused the following statement to be posted on a number of websites (for whatever reason, it was not sent to me) -- It bears careful reading:
In recent days, the music writers’ blogsphere [sic] has been rife with assumptions and even accusations that the management of The Cleveland Orchestra engineered personnel changes at Cleveland’s daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer. These accusations are false.
I want to set the record straight: I was completely surprised by the news last week that Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rosenberg has been re-assigned and will no longer cover The Cleveland Orchestra for the newspaper.
A half dozen critics have called or emailed me this week asking if I met with the newspaper’s editors to lodge complaints. The answer is I have never met with them to protest Donald Rosenberg’s opinions. In the normal course of business during my tenure with the Orchestra, I have spoken with every editor, past and present, about the newspaper's coverage. In those meetings I have delivered compliments and concerns about their news and feature coverage as well as their editorial positions and decisions. But in every case I have also said, very explicitly, that the Orchestra’s management understands and respects the paper's and the critic’s role in expressing opinion about our artistic activities. And whether or not we agree with the opinion we fully accept and support their right and responsibility to publish it.
Donald Rosenberg has written about The Cleveland Orchestra for decades. I worked directly with him for many years, especially during my early tenure here as Director of Public Relations. In that role, I opened the Orchestra archives to him for research on his comprehensive history of the Orchestra “Second to None.” I very much enjoyed the productive and professional relationship we’ve shared. I appreciate and admire a great deal of his work on the subject of the Orchestra and I am grateful for his dedication to regular and comprehensive classical music coverage. Over the years we have agreed and we have disagreed. All the same I will miss working with him.
Gary Hanson Executive Director Cleveland Orchestra
Some posters to Tim Smith's page have parsed this statement.
4 -- Retired supermarket mogul Richard Bogomolny (left), chairman of the Musical Arts Association, parent of the Cleveland Orchestra, (and before that its longtime president and CEO) posted the following on Tim Smith's site:
To those who practice the fine art of “ready, fire, aim”, it might be useful for you to contact us before making accusations. For the record:
No one from the management and board leadership of the Cleveland Orchestra has ever asked the Plain Dealer management to remove Don Rosenberg as critic of The Cleveland Orchestra. Many of us, me included, have had our differences with Mr. Rosenberg's views and the choices he makes in expressing them, but we have never challenged his right to say whatever he wants. More importantly, we are not a party to internal decisions made at the Plain Dealer or within any other newspaper. We had neither notice of the change nor participation in it.
We have hundreds of reviews from all over the world to inform our audiences as to critical opinions. Don Rosenberg is one voice out of a great many critics, all with significant credentials.
Most important, we have complete faith in our audiences, both at Severance Hall, and in the music capitals abroad, to judge the merits of what is communicated by The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst from the stage. It is their vote that counts, whether in Cleveland or in Salzburg, for example. They are completely able to place critics’ views in perspective and form their own opinions of both the performances and the reviews.
End of Story.
Sincerely,
Richard Bogomolny, Chairman Musical Arts Association and The Cleveland Orchestra
5 -- Susan Goldberg (left), editor of the Plain Dealer, has told subscribers to her newspaper who have contacted her that this is "an internal personnel matter" and that the paper will have no further comment. She used the same words in talking with The New York Times.
D-alternative is a Polish duo consisting of Dorota Wierzchowska on vocals and Andrzej Drelinkiewicz on keyboards and electronics. The primary genre is basically Darkwave or Gothic with a bit Medieval or New Age creeping into the mix. Some of the past listeners have compared them to 
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Sonata No. 3 in F minor, known as the "Concerto without Orchestra."
Violinist 
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