tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post7198589463576948470..comments2024-03-18T14:05:44.909-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: Friday MiscellaneaBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-25553035075637955652017-06-23T10:39:41.848-05:002017-06-23T10:39:41.848-05:00Well, I don't know Marc, you may not get on th...Well, I don't know Marc, you may not get on the Music Salon Concert Reviewer short list after all if you miss this opera premiere!<br /><br />8>)<br /><br />"Ancient groove music"? Nope, never heard that one before. More fake news from the NYT.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-41759036394445810532017-06-23T09:37:11.916-05:002017-06-23T09:37:11.916-05:00I've forgotten exactly where or why the subjec...I've forgotten exactly where or why the subject was dance music but has anyone seen or heard the expression 'ancient groove music'? Saw it used ("so-called ancient groove music") in the NYT yesterday-- looked about online and while there is a music publisher named Ben something who does fine engraving for scores et cetera and uses AGM as his business name I came up empty. I think it must just be jargonish for 'dance music before EDM and HH'? that's where I'm leaving it anyway.<br /> <br />It seems to me increasingly unlikely that I'll be at The Woman of Salt this evening. Had been, there for a while, very enthusiastic from the spectacle! point of view but not so much this Friday morning.Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-61836379704133463862017-06-19T19:19:50.596-05:002017-06-19T19:19:50.596-05:00I have a ticket but whether I actually take myself...I have a ticket but whether I actually take myself to the theater in Springfield after eight hours of work Friday is another question; the logistics will necessarily involve the city buses and at least one taxi. We're beginning a run of 90 degree F. days, too, through the weekend. Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-18022548236680299352017-06-19T15:43:21.153-05:002017-06-19T15:43:21.153-05:00Marc, you are very wise! I used to read a lot of 1...Marc, you are very wise! I used to read a lot of 19th century fiction, including the six Palliser novels by Trollope, but I suspect I couldn't get through them now. Where did all our time go?<br /><br />Can we expect a report from you on The Woman of Salt?Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-42401467970609740442017-06-17T12:01:18.923-05:002017-06-17T12:01:18.923-05:00I've got a new opera for you: The Woman of Sal...I've got a new opera for you: <i>The Woman of Salt</i> (think Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, from Genesis), the <i>opera prima</i> of a woman named Anice Thigpen who lives in this area; the site is <a href="https://www.thewomanofsalt.com" rel="nofollow">here</a>. I scribbled that "... (f)rom Lot's wife 'telepathing' the conceit of the opera to her [Thigpen], to glorious Eugene being 'the promised land' where the suffering lesbian mothers find peace, I'm afraid that we'll hear, more than anything else, ninety minutes of self-referential musical therapy ('tuneful' and 'dissonant') on the 23rd. But, perhaps not." I tell myself that there must be something musically valuable or else this production wouldn't have been made to happen-- reason and experience tells me that's not necessarily true, however.Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-66043302289576006002017-06-17T11:44:14.936-05:002017-06-17T11:44:14.936-05:00Just read the NL post about his page turning being...Just read the NL post about his page turning being shushed; gosh, both the shushing and his reaction to it on the blog seem equally ridiculous. I suppose he may write such things knowingly & be in actual real life one of those people capable of a hearty laugh at his own expense. <br /><br />I enjoyed the Visions track from... Félicien David's Lalla Rookh-- thought it was a pleasantly tuneful little piece. Read that novel by Moore about a hundred years ago, once, barely, but it's popularity in 19th c Europe certainly seems to have been widespread (and now of course utterly incomprehensible).Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-38228217318794737442017-06-17T11:26:26.544-05:002017-06-17T11:26:26.544-05:00Re the CD Visions, it all sounds rather like Berli...Re the CD Visions, it all sounds rather like Berlioz and water!Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-80623142944063854742017-06-17T10:01:12.348-05:002017-06-17T10:01:12.348-05:00Yes, Gibson abandoned the schools apparently and b...Yes, Gibson abandoned the schools apparently and became an apprentice of La Monte Young.<br /><br />The 'period instruments' are in the <a href="http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/news.php?date=2017-06-16" rel="nofollow">Presto Classical weekly email</a> yesterday, the first part of it (touting the Gens CD <i>Visions</i>).Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-28301424481252317332017-06-17T08:36:42.719-05:002017-06-17T08:36:42.719-05:00I think of these sorts of compositional strategies...I think of these sorts of compositional strategies as being driven by a kind of historical determinism: we had the steadily increasing complexity of music from the late 19th century through the 60s at least (it continues in some corners even today). This then provoked the antithesis of minimalism. If, as a composer, you see no alternative but to keep extending the boundaries, then you go to great lengths such as hours and hours of a single note. The thing is that LaMont Young was doing this decades ago. The electronic processing of acoustic instruments goes back decades, though the results seem a lot "cleaner" these days.<br /><br />It doesn't seem to have much aesthetic interest though.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-51055756514847163422017-06-17T08:26:26.772-05:002017-06-17T08:26:26.772-05:00Do you have link to this handy? So I can see the c...Do you have link to this handy? So I can see the context? It sounds a bit like an English writer. I think that we are starting to see performances of not just early, but middle and perhaps soon, late 19th century music on "period instruments". Instruments, wind and percussion instruments at least, are continually being modified and "improved" which means that the horizon where a contemporary performance will be heard to significantly deviate from a "period" performance is constantly moving forward. Fifty years ago it was pretty much just Medieval and Renaissance music that called for the full Early Music treatment. Bach was ok on modern instruments. But when Bach and all the other Baroque guys fell to the HIP movement, the rest was inevitable and we soon (as of the 80s, I guess) started seeing performances of Beethoven and Schubert on "original instruments". The process continues, though I suspect it will be quite a while before we see Boulez on original instruments!Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-63547873656951399832017-06-17T08:18:55.939-05:002017-06-17T08:18:55.939-05:00You've got to wonder why the Times imagines th...You've got to wonder why the Times imagines that Randy Gibson's three hours of D is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/arts/music/listen-to-three-hours-of-music-from-a-single-note.html" rel="nofollow">worth all the space</a>? Fifteen minutes was peculiar if vaguely interesting: there are two other tracks (movements?) available for free listening at the CD label's site but I haven't been inclined to take them up on their offer to do so. I thought of this in connexion with your comment on perfect pitch because Gibson and 'drone music' seem to rely on the use of overtones (not that I quite understand about those) which depend evidently on 'compromising the pure intervals of just intonation to meet other requirements' or something like that. "Does every note come with a little label: G5 and so on? Does this ever distract from the expressive content? What about complex textures as we might find in Ligeti or Xenakis? Does every note still come with a little label even if there are hundreds of different ones?" Expressive content, indeed.Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-35546590977138838552017-06-16T20:52:15.461-05:002017-06-16T20:52:15.461-05:00Was reading this morning and came across this:
T...Was reading this morning and came across this: <br /><br />Though much of this repertoire [later 19th c vocal music: song, opera, oratorio-- think of the 30 <i>other</i> Massenet operas, or the 40-odd by Halévy...] fell quite rapidly out of vogue in the early twentieth century (thanks in part to the economics involved in mounting some of the larger-scale works), it’s all immensely attractive music, and I can think of no finer advocates than [Véronique] Gens and the Münchner Runfunkorchester under Hervé Niquet, <b><i>who sound for all the world as if they’re playing period instruments thanks to the idiomatic handling of style and sonority on show.</i></b><br /><br />What 'period instruments' can the writer be talking about? what am I missing?Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.com