Friday Miscellanea

On the 29th of March in 1902 English composer William Walton was born. The Wikipedia article fails to mention an excellent set of pieces for guitar, the Five Bagatelles, written for Julian Bream. They are a finely crafted balance of virtuosic display and lyric expression.

* * *

The Times Literary Supplement has a series called "Grace Notes" that "celebrates pioneering composers and musicians, and assesses the enduring impact of their work." The most recent entry in the series is on Tchaikovsky. That mission statement seems innocuous enough, but current theorists and musicologists are leery of anything that suggests an "evolutionary model" of music history. You know, the kind of thing that looks at composers in terms of early, middle and late works and organizes everything in terms of innovation and influence? This particular essay is a tidy, non-technical survey of Tchaikovsky's music and connects him with the wider culture of the time.

Of course the idea that Tchaikovsky anticipated the experimentalism of the Symbolists and Surrealists runs counter to his conservatism as a person and as an artist, his reverence for the music of eighteenth-century composers, reliance on the number format in his operas, general adherence to the diatonic system, and predilection for German augmented sixth chords. But he embraced these things in order to counter them, or to highlight and enhance them with his own unmistakable signature. In his late works, meters are scrambled and gestures displaced over the registers before fading into nothingness. Lives, Tchaikovsky believed, should have the textures of dreams.

* * *

Over at the Washington Post the reliable music critic Anne Midgette gives us a short course in bel canto.

Every so often, when I’m pontificating about opera, in print or in person, a reader or an editor will ask me, “But what exactly is bel canto?” And I’m brought up short.

The quickest answer is, “It means ‘beautiful singing.’ ” That doesn’t explain much. Yet when I say, “Bel canto denotes the style of Italian opera of the early 19th century, specifically the works of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini” — well, that gives you the facts, but it still doesn’t really help you. (It doesn’t even let you know how you are most likely to have heard of those three composers, who wrote “The Barber of Seville,” “Lucia di Lammermoor” and “Norma,” respectively.) 

* * *

 Also in the Washington Post is one of the clearest examples of cultural appropriation in music: The future of classical music is Chinese.

Seventy-five percent of my students at UCLA are Chinese or Chinese American. Pianists from China, after graduating from the best music schools in Europe and the United States, return home to pass on classical music traditions in their own distinct ways. This musical exchange is exponentially growing. Concert halls may remain empty in our nation’s cities, especially when traditional classical recitals are offered by a non-household name, but in China, playing a Beethoven or Chopin program is not boring or unhip. Chinese audiences are hungry for more.

* * *

Here is a weird little item from Slipped Disc: CRISIS AT CURTIS AS PRACTICE ROOMS ARE SHUT. The Curtis Institute is a unique musical institution that offers the highest quality instruction to a very limited number of students, all of whom are offered full scholarships. I had an ex-girlfriend who was a graduate. After a rash of petty vandalism in the practice rooms the Dean has lowered the boom:

Unfortunately, three more instances of vandalism occurred overnight—a mirror and thermostat lock box being ripped off the wall/damaged and lipstick found on the acoustic paneling in another room. Any purposeful damage to our facilities is disappointing, but what has transpired over the last two weeks—the number of rooms damaged—is abhorrent. All Lenfest Hall practice rooms are now locked. They will remain locked until the person(s) responsible for the damage come forward or I receive credible information concerning who may have done this.

I don't know what to think. I have never heard of this kind of thing. Music students are so dependent on unlimited access to practice rooms that it is hard to envision them vandalizing them. Is it someone from outside? Some sort of nasty personal disagreement? Hard to say. But the response seems rather Draconian. Some of the comments to the Slipped Disc post are interesting...

* * *

Economist Tyler Cowen has a post about how streaming has changed song structures. Here is an interesting bit:

Artistic competition is so fierce nowadays that artists need to constantly release music. One way to do this is to make songs shorter and simpler; another way is to get a producer to make the beat, a singer to make the chorus, and another rapper for the second verse. This leads to Migos member Offset, DJ Khaled, Justin Bieber, Chance The Rapper, and Lil Wayne all appearing on the same 2017 song, “I’m The One.” It also means that fans start to see credits like those from Cardi B’s new album “Invasion of Privacy”. The 13 tracks on the album features 104 total writing credits, meaning 8 people per track. Its single “Be Careful” has 17 alone.

In most areas of the economy, fierce competition leads to significant benefits to consumers. But I have my doubts about music. Competition is good in the abstract, but it seems as if it is leading to generic, industrialized production by committee and that is not going to produce anything of high aesthetic quality. What do you think?

* * * 

For our envoi today here are the Five Bagatelles by William Walton played very well by Sanel Redzik. The world is full of fine guitarists I have never heard of before!