tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post5692806816656689873..comments2024-03-27T23:06:03.736-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: Friday MiscellaneaBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-85148428771359086442019-12-25T09:11:38.787-06:002019-12-25T09:11:38.787-06:00Thanks for weaving your way through the complex th...Thanks for weaving your way through the complex threads of that tapestry! The idea of having to get a DNA test before you are allowed to use this or that musical idiom seems pretty illiberal. But we seem to live in illiberal times.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-77826377331482990182019-12-24T23:47:53.165-06:002019-12-24T23:47:53.165-06:00For the cultural appropriation article I noticed s...For the cultural appropriation article I noticed someone asked about the case of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha cantatas. Davids hasn't commented and I'm not sure if he will but Michael Pisani has an interesting monograph on depictions of Native Americans in concert music from Europe and the United States I've been slowly getting through. Joseph Horowitz has been doing some interesting writing on the Indianist leader Arthur Farwell, whose works have been considered taboo by Native American musicians and musicologists in the present as a matter of principle even though, unlike Coleridge-Taylor, Farwell interacted with Native people and transcribed and adapted a number of songs from some tribal song traditions. It's not that Farwell is necessarily a lost master, although I have liked some of his work and found some of it forgettable--Horowitz has been making a case at his blog on ArtsJournal that Farwell has been forbidden from getting a more serious hearing because his having been a leader of the Indianist movement has meant he's considered guilty of cultural appropriation. Farwell was in some ways an outsider in his own time and place because some of his contemporaries thought he was too committed to making concert music from Native American songs. It looks like a kind of damned if he did and damned if he didn't double bind.<br /><br />Conversely, contemporary composers who invoke Native identity are able to get commissions and that's sort of cool but there's a sense in which what keeps it from being a kind of "orientalist" novelty thing is the composer being of the group X rather than a white composer emulating musical idioms from X ethnicity. <br />Wenatchee the Hatchethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13208892745502555715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-47884940870517223082019-11-30T09:30:03.074-06:002019-11-30T09:30:03.074-06:00Glad to hear that Anne Midgette's observations...Glad to hear that Anne Midgette's observations are accurate. A friend of mine used to be principal French horn in the NSO.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-43754751570166153772019-11-30T09:14:07.369-06:002019-11-30T09:14:07.369-06:00Dry, piercing flute notes are the norm with the NS...Dry, piercing flute notes are the norm with the NSO's flute section, I'm afraid. It's a shame -- they have one of the best brass sections around right now, beyond-excellent double-reeds and clarinets, improving strings, good percussion, and that awful flute sound sitting atop the rest.JBBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15002439589820628442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-20304667974086879742019-11-29T17:43:04.405-06:002019-11-29T17:43:04.405-06:00Thanks for the comment, Mike. I used to be pretty ...Thanks for the comment, Mike. I used to be pretty down on Kanye, but I have completely changed my mind about him. He is one complex guy, that is for sure. Isn't it odd that the kind of humility that used to be so common among musicians, is fading away?Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-9726284655899876182019-11-29T16:28:12.703-06:002019-11-29T16:28:12.703-06:00Kanye West is pretty much off my radar but I do re...Kanye West is pretty much off my radar but I do recall vividly the first time I heard him discussed. It was a while back. Apparently he was in financial straits and had made some public comment the gist of which was that that the world owed him a living because he is a musical genius. The reply in this conversation was that when told what a great genius he is Hendrix would talk about how embarrassing that is because all he does is make mistakes.<br />Hears to the humble geniuses who move the music forward.<br />Happy Holidays,<br />Mike near San Antonio<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com