Today's Listening

A really terrific performance of some 17th century music by Honoré d'Ambruis from Lea Desandre and Thomas Dunford.

 

Friday Miscellanea

I don't know how I missed this in the May issue of The Critic: Before and after gould.

I first heard of the indivisible connection between Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Glenn Gould when I was around 16. It was that time in high school when people began to separate themselves by tribe: the sporty types (constantly eating), the theatre crowd (constantly screaming), the artists (constantly painting each fingernail a different colour), and so on. A member of the tribe that skipped class to read Patti Smith and Sylvia Plath over cups of burnt coffee scoffed at my copy of Trevor Pinnock’s recording of the variations and pronounced that the right recording was by someone named Glenn Gould. How could I not know this?

After recounting some unfortunate experiences the writer, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, decides to have a look at the performance history of the Goldberg Variations:

After this, I figured it was time to take apart the public perception of Bach’s work into “Before Gould” and “After Gould” (B.G. and A.G.) phases, and to examine the myths and traditions surrounding the Goldberg Variations. One would do well to ask how Gould’s association might be a result of various historical and social factors. What did the Goldberg Variations mean to the public before 1955, the year of Gould’s first studio recording?

* * *

The Wall Street Journal has a review of the Johnny Gandelsman album by Allan Kozinn: ‘This is America’ by Johnny Gandelsman Review: A Musical American Mosaic

Mr. Gandelsman, whose last release was a superb traversal of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Violin (from 2018), brings a warm, flexible tone and an incisive interpretive sensibility to this ambitious collection. Whether you focus on the purely musical qualities of these new works, or on the set’s social and political underpinnings, the multifaceted approach Mr. Gandelsman took here is something other instrumentalists could usefully emulate.

* * *

 A fascinating essay by Janet Malcolm at The New Yorker: My Father’s Bad Seats at the Opera

The inequality of audience experience is intrinsic to the performing arts and unique to them. Literature and painting and sculpture are mediums of equal opportunity. A rich reader’s experience of “Anna Karenina” is no more intense than a poor one’s. The hedge-fund owner and the secretary see exactly the same “Raft of the Medusa.” But only the hedge-fund owner gets to see the expression on Azucena’s face when she relives throwing the wrong baby into the fire. Attempting a fairer shake with opera are the Met’s Live in HD films of performances. Here we all have great seats, so to speak, but somehow it isn’t the same as being at the opera house. Something is missing from those films. Or perhaps, more to the point, something has been added—the gigantic closeup—which blunts the magic that wafts out to even the lousiest seats in the opera house after the lights go down and the first bars of the overture sound.

* * *

This seems odd: Research says orchestral music is more popular on social media than in schools – one TikTok star explains why

A recent survey commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra revealed that 87% of children in the UK were engaging with orchestral music in their daily lives.

According to the research, this was more likely to be at home than in schools.

The most popular way young people reportedly engage with orchestral music is through film music. The next most popular way is listening to orchestral music on YouTube and other social media. Third on the list is by listening to orchestral music at school, during a music lesson. 

“When people ask me where to start when it comes to orchestrating, I tell them to firstly listen to as much orchestral music as possible. Then find the score of a piece you like and sync the music to what you’re seeing on the page in front of you.

“Look at the score and say, okay, what is happening here that’s making me feel this way. And then take it a step further, and apply that technique to something you're writing yourself. Try to recreate that feeling in a piece of music of your own.”

Fry believes the future of orchestral music is in safe hands and also more accessible than ever, “If you have a computer with GarageBand on it, then you can make orchestral music! You can hear the way things are going to sound without having to pay a million dollars to get an orchestra in the room.

* * *

Opera seems to be undergoing a revival: The Best 21st-Century Operas, According to Our Readers

It’s a strange tale for those of us who grew up in the era of high modernism, but contemporary opera has become popular with audiences. Not the dense, uncompromising works, mind you: Harrison Birtwistle still doesn’t have a lot of fans, while Jake Heggie does.

But since we’re swimming in new opera — the Metropolitan Opera itself did four contemporary operas in its 2021–2022 season — SF Classical Voice decided to ask our readers and critics what they thought the best opera composed since 2000 was. And we got a range of well-written responses.

Just follow the link for the operas.

* * *

Here is a very Canadian musical idea: Daily concert of ships' horns in the St. John's, N.L. harbour set to rumble floors

On Friday afternoon in St. John's, N.L., deep blasts of ships' horns punctuated by sharp wails from a pair of saxophones rose up from the fog blanketing the city's harbour.

It was the first of 10 daily Harbour Symphonies scheduled in conjunction with the city's biennial Sound Symposium festival, which is celebrating it 20th anniversary. Typically, the symphonies are played only on the horns of the ships in the St. John's harbour. But on Friday, it had accompaniment from Ouroboros, a beloved local band that dabbles in everything from klezmer to circus music.

To some, the Harbour Symphony is a thunderous mess of boomps, barmps and woomps that make it impossible to carry on a conversation.

* * *

 Here is the 1955 Gould recording of the Goldberg Variations:

Here is an excerpt from Kevin Puts comic opera Elizabeth Cree:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ILNn21XtOc

And here is the original version of Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFbEUto4Ocg

Trip to Germany

Next week I am flying to Germany for two weeks, mainly as a holiday and to visit friends. I chose this time because they will be on holiday and it turns out, everyone else is on holiday too! I was hoping to see some concerts, maybe a couple of operas, but there doesn't seem to be much on towards the end of July and beginning of August. But never mind, there are a host of excellent museums that I normally wouldn't even get to that now I will. I will be based in Dresden with side trips to Leipzig, Prague and possibly Berlin.

Here is a list of the major museums in Dresden:

https://www.dresden.de/apps_ext/MuseenApp_en/index

My friends say that the Panometer is particularly interesting and unusual:

https://www.panometer-dresden.de/en/

And, of course, food and wine will also be important themes. This is a particularly good time for North Americans to visit Europe as the Euro is down about 15% this year vis-a-vis the US dollar, so not as expensive as usual. Here is Dresden's main church, the Frauenkirche:

Click to enlarge

Gandelsman, part 3

Olivia Davis' Steeped, in three movements, begins with obscure mutterings interrupted by bold double-stops creating a dimensional space through dynamics. The three movements are Impromptu, Moto perpetuo and Cadenza. Total duration is just shy of 14 minutes. The multi-movement structure lends itself to contrast: the first movement is improvisatory, the second is about constant motion and the third challenges the notion of a cadenza by making it a meandering finale. I quite liked the structural use of dynamics and rhythm.

Olivia Davis, we learn from her New Music USA bio, is a DMA candidate in composition at the University of Michigan. We are lucky to have a live performance of Steeped by Johnny Gandelsman on YouTube:

And here is a clip of the composer commenting on the work:

Tardigrades by Nick Dunston (based in Berlin and New York) is named after those hardy microscopic animals that can survive the lack of food and water for amazing stretches of time. The composer contrasts this with what he sees as the fragility of human existence. The piece begins with an extended percussive section and uses a lot of extreme timbres and pizzicato. There is a clip on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYVUt4tjCY

And here is the composer discussing the work:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/daEO-vR810Y

The last piece in this post is Dew, Time, Linger by Adeliia Faizullina. In the notes the composer writes:

I see time as a fragile drop of dew, like nature's ticking clock. It is fragile, and the pandemic made that even clearer. This tiny drop of dew reflects the whole world. You hold it, and you try to keep this little water drop and save it, but it melts down and evaporates--it is already in the past.

The piece uses haunting harmonics, slow percussive ticking and extended trills to explore our sense of passing time. Here is a live performance by Johnny Gandelsman: 

And here is a commentary by the composer:

Gandelsman, part 2

The next track is Sahra be Wyckoff by Kinan Azmeh. The composer moved to New York from Syria in 2001 and the title refers to the musical community he joined located in and around Wyckoff street in Brooklyn. He says: "The piece is an homage to a place of gathering, and to the spirit of that collective that continues to live on.

On first hearing the piece is a highly focussed development of the motifs we hear at the beginning. It is for solo violin except for a small percussion part, likely contributed by the soloist, plus a vocal recitation towards the end saying "A party at Wyckoff for all." Here is the clip from YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyWrJBUoe7U

And a comment from the composer:

Nest is Sinekemān by Layale Chaker. There doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia entry, but here is her bio from her web site. The sinekemān is a type of violin played in Ottoman times with seven sympathetic strings. The piece is about solitude. In her essay the composer quotes from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron:

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt

In solitude, where we are least alone;

A truth, which through our being then doth melt,

And purifies from self: it is a tone,

The soul and source of music...

The piece is a fairly lengthy, around 11 minutes, meditation on solitude with microtones, double-stops and tightly chromatic melodic fragments. There is no clip of the piece on YouTube, but there is a comment by the composer:

Christina Courtin contributes Stroon, her first piece for solo violin, which is actually intended as music to accompany dance, commissioned by the Vail Dance Festival. There is a clip on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuo-zD4muHU

And she comments on the piece as well:

I really know what she means when she says she is not sure about how the piece has turned out--I've felt that way myself about some recent pieces. The Covid epidemic turned the music world upside down. But the piece is a great deal more serene than one might expect!

Friday Miscellanea

I'll get back to the new Gandelsman album on the weekend, but for now here is the usual Friday Miscellanea. First up, The Guardian has a preview of the Proms with ‘We hear things no one else notices’: Proms composers on their extraordinary new music:

‘I undo dense, solid knots – and release a living thing’

Thomas Adès

Tell us about your Proms piece … I composed these four Märchentänze (“dances from fairytale”) in 2020, originally for violin and piano, then a year later made this orchestral version. The first movement is a fantasy on the folk song Two Magicians, immortalised by Steeleye Span, about the immemorial generative dance of the sexes. A hushed movement follows, the chant-like tune presented as a round. The third movement, A Skylark for Jane, is an outpouring of birdsong, each individual orchestra member freely echoing the soloist to create an “exaltation” of skylarks. The final dance begins with an energetic elfin theme, and grows into a writhing dance. Many themes grapple, twining around each other like otters, towards a decisive conclusion.

* * *

US SURVEY: 1 IN 4 CONCERTGOERS SAY THEY WON’T RETURN

A recent study by WolfBrown, a California-based consulting firm that conducts market research for nonprofit cultural groups throughout the United States, says that 26% of former orchestra attendees nationwide say they’re not yet ready to resume live performances — and many of these reluctant music lovers may never return to the concert hall.

* * *

The most recent stage in the long history of musicians in exile: Far From Kabul, Building a New Life, With Music and Hope

In Portugal, the Afghans enjoy newfound freedoms. The boys and girls can go swimming together. They can date. The girls can wear shorts and skirts without fear of judgment. The older students can drink alcohol.

But life in Lisbon has also been a challenge. The students spend their days largely inside the military hospital, where they eat, sleep, rehearse, wash clothes and play table tennis, nervous about venturing too far or making new friends. Unaccustomed to Portuguese food, they keep bottles of curry, cardamom and peppercorn in their rooms to add familiar flavors to traditional dishes, like grilled sardines and scrambled eggs with smoked sausage.

* * *

Also in the New York Times a review of a fascinating new album of string quartets: A new boxed set of string quartets by Wadada Leo Smith, an anchor of American experimental music, reveals his sustained engagement with the form.

* * *

Some of the best and most secure jobs in classical music are in orchestras and Van asks the question Are orchestral trial years a fair way of assessing musicians?

On June 3, 2021, Czieharz had won the audition in Wuppertal for the position of Wechseltrompette (meaning that he would be expected to play every trumpet part except principal). Orchestra auditions are incredibly grueling processes. Many fantastic players take dozens, even hundreds, before winning a spot, and it was a major accomplishment for such a young trumpet player to win this one. But the application process wasn’t over. Over a full season of concerts, Czieharz would have to prove that he had what it takes to become a full-fledged member of the Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal. 

Most jobs come with probationary periods for employees, but the orchestra trial year is an unusually rigorous, fraught process. Job openings in orchestras are rare, so chances are the most recent audition winner will be the only musician on trial. The trial period lasts for at least a season, sometimes longer. Orchestras are not known for their clear human resource structures, and a trialist, as they’re sometimes called, will not receive corporate-style feedback meetings. Instead, they’ll receive hints on their musical performance and social integration in passing, on rehearsal breaks and after concerts. When the trial year is up, all their colleagues—somewhere from 70 to 100 people—vote on the trialist. Not their technique; not their musicality. Them.

* * *

 Let's have a listen to that orchestra. Here they are in Richard Strauss' Sinfonia Domestica under conductor Toshiyuki Kamioka:

 Here is the String Quartet No. 3, "Black Church" by Wadada Leo Smith played by Southwest Chamber Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1-q3eari1Q

And to end, one of the most astonishing feats of harmonic wizardry ever attempted, the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde by Wagner:

Johnny Gandelsman: This Is America

My CD arrived remarkably quickly so this will be the first of a few posts on this admirable project. First, a comment on the cover design:

Aesthetically, this is interesting, isn't it? It has a distinctly retro or dystopian feel. This perhaps comes from an imagined dystopian, post-apocalypse time when all there is left is beat-up, worn-out typewriters and scraps of old file folders. This is borne out in the introduction where the artist refers to the disasters of the 2020/21 years with the deaths from COVID, the riots, police brutality, wildfires, unemployment and so on. It was a kind of apocalypse and the album is an attempt to give voice to others, the essential task of a classical musician. He concludes:

Over the course of the last 18 months, I've come to think of this project as an anthology, a snapshot in time, documenting a tiny slice of the creative thought and output in this country today. I invite you to stop listening to pundits, extend your ears, open up your imagination, and trust the music to guide you into a challenging, complicated and thrilling sound world--This Is America.  --Johnny Gandelsman

The booklet also contains an essay by each composer on their piece, plus the words to those pieces with a text and a track listing.

I apologize if I am a "pundit" though I think of myself more as being a (retired) performer and very part-time composer. So let's work our way slowly through these 22 pieces. The first one is"O" (standing for "oxygen") by Clarice Assad. She sees oxygen as a common theme in the transmission of Covid, the respiratory failure that it often caused, the prevention of breath entering the lungs of George Floyd and so on. "O" is for violin and processed vocal overdubs. Blogger won't embed, but here is a clip from YouTube from the album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPk6s8fWBoI

Clarice Assad is the daughter of Sergio Assad of the famous Assad guitar duo. This piece makes excellent use of the violin's capacity for extended, expressive melody. I don't have too much to say after only listening a couple of times, but it seems a very effective piece with a lot of atmospheric weight. There is also a clip on YouTube where she talks briefly about the piece:

That's all I am going to do today. I encourage you to pick up a copy of the album and we can work our way through it together.

Summer Vacation

I'm heading off to Germany for a couple of weeks toward the end of the month. This year I'm not attending a music festival, just going for a vacation. I'll be staying in Dresden in Saxony in the eastern part of Germany. Beautiful town with a lot of cultural history. It was thoroughly bombed in WWII, but has since been rebuilt. I am going to be spending time with friends who live nearby. This is Bach country and I will likely take a trip to Leipzig.

I am planning on buying a guitar there as I don't want to miss two weeks practice time and I am planning a concert when I return in a lovely Tuscan-style villa. The best guitar store in Germany is likely Siccas Guitars in Karlsruhe, but that is the other side of the country so I probably won't make it there. I don't like to travel with my concert guitar so I will just buy a guitar and leave it there for future trips.

Siccas Guitars have a bunch of guitar videos on YouTube. Here is Valeria Galimova playing one of my favorite pieces by Manuel Ponce, the Sonatina Meridional:

I will likely have time to do some posting and I'll put up photos of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig where Bach is buried and visit the Bach Museum.

Sure, let's hear some Bach. This is a better than average video of Segovia playing the Gavotte from the 4th Lute Suite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcdS2hbpZcY

New Music for Violin

 Oddly, some of the most interesting articles on classical music sometimes appear in the Wall Street Journal. This one is a fascinating review of a new triple-CD album by Johnny Gandelsman, first violin with the innovative quartet Brooklyn Rider: ‘This is America’ by Johnny Gandelsman Review: A Musical American Mosaic. Not surprisingly, the reviewer is the very fine Allan Kozinn.

The violinist Johnny Gandelsman used the enforced downtime of the pandemic to undertake a commissioning and recording project with several missions. The most practical and quotidian was expanding the solo fiddle repertory. But equally important, Mr. Gandelsman saw the project as a snapshot of our fraught times, and a manifesto on diversity, musical as well as social.

The recording, “This Is America,” just released, presents 24 new scores, accounting for nearly four hours of music on three CDs. It is a lexicon of contemporary styles, from folk-inspired meditations and neo-Romantic works dripping in melody, to post-Minimalist essays that balance repetition, complexity and varying levels of acerbity. Most of the works are unaccompanied; a few set the violin against layers of electronic sound; and in a couple—Marika Hughes’s sweetly harmonized “With Love from J” and Bojan Louis’s “Dólii,” an accompanied poem—Mr. Gandelsman trades in his violin for a tenor guitar, and sings, whistles and recites.

What does this project remind you of? A few years ago a similarly innovative project came from violinist Hilary Hahn who did a very interesting 2-CD album on newly commissioned encores called In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores. I did a series of posts on that project: Hilary Hahn in 3 Parts.

So that is the background to the Hilary Hahn encore project. Let me say that it is a brilliant idea, approached with boldness and conviction. Of course, the traditional violin encore is showing its age as most of them date from around the turn of the century--the last century, not this one! Kreisler came to the concert stage before the First World War and the encores he favored, which are still the ones primarily played, date from that idyllic time. If I were possibly the most formidable violinist of my generation, as I think Hilary is, then I would be looking for a way to put my stamp on the repertoire. Reinventing the encore would not be where I would start, but neither did Hilary. She has previously commissioned a concerto from Jennifer Higdon, professor at the Curtis Institute, where Hilary studied. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010. Not surprisingly, there isn't a good clip of the piece at YouTube, but it was released by Deutsche Gramophon in a pairing with the Tchakovsky concerto here.

I just ordered a copy of the Gandelsman disc so when it arrives I will do a review of it. 

Friday Miscellanea

Not everyone was a Taruskin fan: TIM PAGE TAKES ISSUE WITH RICHARD TARUSKIN

As for Taruskin’s prejudices and wilful myopia. Tim adds: ‘In his history (of music), for example, there were no mentions of Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Duke Ellington, Ruth Crawford Seeger or Stephen Sondheim. The name of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, once voted the most popular composer in the world in a New York Philharmonic radio poll and the subject of a huge revival in the last two decades of the 20th century, appeared five times in 4,560 pages, and then only in passing.’…

* * *

From somewhat out in left field are these interesting observations: Are Things Really That Bad? Actually, No. In my discussions of aesthetics I often talk about the notion of taste. So does economist Tyler Cowen in this essay:

I am increasingly worried that human success and failure are ruled by taste — the demand side, in economic terms. If there are fewer beautiful and charming residential post-World War II neighborhoods, it is because most people do not want to live in them. If there are fewer movies today with the dramatic impact and compositional rigor of “Citizen Kane,” it is because people do not very much want to see them. It is not that it is too difficult or expensive to make another “Citizen Kane.” 

It’s also important to realize that a lot of politics is about aesthetic tastes for a particular set of values, a particular set of people, a particular set of processes and outcomes. There was a series of democratic revolutions starting in the late 18th century, just as there were numerous fascist revolutions starting in the early 20th century and neoliberal revolutions in the 1990s. Social contagion can help explain those as well.

It is not lengthy, so read the whole thing.

* * *

‘A truce with the trees’: Rebecca Solnit on the wonders of a 300-year old violin

For the last 50 years, David Harrington, the founder and artistic director of San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet, has been playing what he calls “pretty athletic music” on a violin made in 1721. I’ve heard him play all kinds of compositions on it, from the galloping notes of Orange Blossom Special to the minimalism of Terry Riley and even the occasional bit of Bach. The instrument made by Carlo Giuseppe Testore in Milan has survived three centuries, providing music for countless audiences, and can be heard on more than 60 Kronos albums.

When I first learned the age of the instrument I was filled with wonder that a delicate piece of craftsmanship could endure for centuries, that something so small and light could do so much, that an instrument made in the 18th century could have so much to say in the 21st. It felt like a messenger from the past and an emblem of the possible, a relic and a promise.

My Robert Holroyd guitar, built in 1983, will turn forty years old next year and it is as lovely an instrument as ever!

 * * *

A madman’s guide to Wagner:

The German composer Richard Wagner wrote seven operas in his mature style. I’ve been going to see them in live performances for the last forty years or so – my very first was Die Walküre at English National Opera in 1983, I think. I knew most of them quite well before that. The BBC, rather astonishingly now, had devoted ten weeks to showing the famous 1976 Bayreuth centenary Ring on TV, act by act; the summer before I went to university in 1983, I splashed out on what I still think is the greatest of all opera recordings, Carlos Kleiber’s Tristan and played it into the ground.

Still, there is no substitute for seeing the things live, in the theatre. Since then I’ve seen all of them repeatedly, brilliantly performed and directed, and some really awful evenings, too.

I'm afraid I have never fallen under his spell, but one of these summers in Europe I will make a concerted effort to see some live performances.

* * *

Alex Ross sums up the stature of Richard Taruskin quite well:

The most formidable of musicologists, one of the most formidable writers on music who ever lived, died early this morning in Oakland, California, at the age of seventy-seven. William Robin has written an obituary for the New York Times. I will have more to say soon in The New Yorker. I can hardly overstate his impact on my own work, and I can hardly imagine a world without him.

* * *

Let's hear David Harrington and the Kronos Quartet playing some music by Rhiannon Giddens:

And here is Simon Rattle conducting the Prelude to Lohengrin by Wagner:

I am halfway through Taruskin's Oxford History of Western Music and just finished his discussion of Smetana. Here is Harnoncourt conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in Die Moldau:

Taruskin has died

The New York Times has the obituary: Richard Taruskin, Vigorously Polemical Musicologist, Dies at 77

“He was the most important living writer on classical music, either in academia or in journalism,” said Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker, in a recent interview. “He knew everything, his ideas were potent, and he wrote with dashing style.”

At a time when the classical canon was considered sacrosanct, Mr. Taruskin advanced the philosophy that it was a product of political forces. His bête noire was the widespread notion that Beethoven symphonies and Bach cantatas could be divorced from their historical contexts. He savagely critiqued this idea of “music itself,” which, he wrote, represented “a decontaminated space within which music can be composed, performed and listened to in a cultural and historical vacuum, that is, in perfect sterility.”

You should read the whole thing, which is a pretty fair summary of his career. Right now I am exactly halfway through my third reading of his Oxford History of Western Music, likely the finest historical summation we are ever likely to see. On the occasion of his latest collection of essays, Cursed Questions, published in 2020, I wrote a post discussing some of the knotty issues presented. Richard Taruskin honored this blog by posting a comment which I treasure:

Hello Mr Townsend, and thanks at long last for reading me so seriously and commenting so seriously on what I've written. You are of course right: I love classical music and high art as much as anyone (even as much as you, I'll bet). My question is whether I am entitled by my love for it to regard myself as a morally superior person. I of course say no, and the piece on which you are commenting is my lengthy justification for my refusal to pat classical music lovers on the back. It's the sober academic version of that Musical Mystique piece from the New Republic a dozen years ago, about which people got rather exercised. But neither piece was an attack on the music or anyone's love for it.

All good wishes, Richard Taruskin

So I am forever disabused of the notion that listening to classical music makes you a better person. Though perhaps the jury is still out on whether playing it might help.

Our heartfelt thanks to Professor Taruskin for his lifelong commitment to the critical examination of classical music and its scholarship, a project that too few actually pursue.

UPDATE: There is a nice followup in the NYT by James Oestreich: Music’s Towering Intellectual, With an Appetite for Trouble

Friday Miscellanea

 Over on the right you will notice a kind of blog "seal of approval" that was awarded this blog several years ago. At the time as I recall, I was number 43 on the list. Just out of curiosity I went over there the other day and it seems I have crept up to number 19. Yahoo! Even though I really don't do nearly as many didactic posts as I used to.

* * *

One blogger that does a lot of educational stuff is Ethan Hein. Here is a post he did recently on one of my favorite Talking Heads songs, "Psychokiller."

“Psycho Killer” may have unusual subject matter for a song, but there’s nothing unusual about it in the broader context of American culture. In addition to Patrick Bateman, there’s the Hannibal Lecter cinematic universe, there’s Dexter, there’s Nicole Wallace on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and so on. The genre of the first-person shooter has enabled millions of gamers (myself included) the simulated experience of killing people on a whim. The fascination with “psycho killers” is weird, though, because there very few of them in real life. Murderers usually have a close relationship with their victim; woman are most likely to be killed by their husband or boyfriend. So why is Hannibal Lecter such a popular character? You don’t have to agree with Professor Sarat that we are secretly jealous of him, but otherwise it is very difficult to explain why he looms so large in Americans’ imaginative lives.

I think the answer is that evil is inherently fascinating--because it tempts us.

* * *

And speaking of evil characters: THE DEVIL DEFEATS MUNICH

Message from Bayerische Staatsoper:

To our great regret, the second performance of the new festival production THE DEVIL OF LOUDUN on June 30, 2022 has to be cancelled. Due to the current infection, there are several personnel outages in the crew, which cannot be replaced due to the complexity of the show.

* * *

The group of fans of Yuja Wang also includes fans of her fashions. Here is a clip of some of them:

 * * *

I'm often talking about the value of tradition in the arts and this newspaper article uncovers one specific example: At the S.F. Symphony, long collaborations are the key to success

At the moment, the San Francisco Symphony is at a sharp inflection point, in ways that are both exciting and potentially worrisome. The arrival of Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director signals a shift for the orchestra, both in the repertoire it tackles and the aesthetic priorities that will guide its performances of that music.

At the same time, the orchestra is facing a comparatively large turnover in personnel, due in part to the number of members who decided that the pandemic shutdown was an opportune time to retire. So even as Salonen gets a chance to stock the orchestra with musicians who share his artistic outlook — something Thomas did before him during his 25-year tenure — there will also be a rupture in some of those deep collegial traditions going back decades.

“This is one of the reasons I feel bad about leaving now, when there are so many openings,” Braunstein said. “Because the culture of how the orchestra plays needs to be nurtured, so that the good things we’ve achieved over the last 30 or 40 years won’t evaporate.”

* * *

And speaking of California: Why new music has come roaring back in L.A.

New music has become a way of life, be it, and in no particular order, at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Broad Stage, Zipper Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, REDCAT, Royce Hall, the Ford, the Wende Museum, the Wallis, First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica, 2220 Arts + Archives, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Hauser & Wirth and Descanso Gardens. New music pops up in small galleries in alleyways and at the Mount Wilson Observatory. The Monday Evening Concerts, the longest-running new music series in America and possibly anywhere, began in 1939 as Evenings on the Roof in a small studio atop an unpretentious Silver Lake home, where, before long, it attracted the likes of Schoenberg and Stravinsky.

* * *

Here is a definitive performance of "Psychokiller" from the film Stop Making Sense:

 

Here is a new production of The Soldier's Tale by Stravinsky from the San Francisco Symphony directed by Esa-Pekka Salonen.