Friday Miscellanea

I post this item simply to prove that I'm not the only curmudgeon in the world of music: even pop music has them! "Spin magazine founder: Today's music isn't any good."

“The commodification of music is so complete that artists these days create songs thinking they would make a good car commercial,” Guccione says. “And they’re more fixated on their social-media strategy than they are on their music.”

Or as I have said: today's classical artists would love to sell out, but nobody's buying!

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Something we have occasionally discussed is the digital music world and how well it handles classical music. Here is an article on managing classical music in iTunes 12 from Macworld.

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I have a generally critical attitude towards a lot of the most characteristic art of post-war modernism. I'm not alone in this view as demonstrated by this rather thorough debunking of one of the leading post-modern artists of Britain, Tracey Emin, who managed to parley a lack of ability and a lot of cheek into a nice career in the modern art world:

When quality and accomplishment are no longer factors in who receives institutional support, it becomes a scramble for notice. It’s a matter of who can most offend the disdained others, make the most noise, kiss the most rings and/or asses; a game for those most willing to do whatever it takes to win the lottery of who the self-proclaimed gate keepers wave through to join the privileged circle. Emin, with her toilet stall quality doodles and screeds, is now a Royal Academy Professor of Drawing and on her way to knighthood. This is a clear demonstration that those in charge have lost all perspective of what is meaningful in art and life.

The music world is, thankfully, rather different as, for most composers, traditional craft and aesthetics still govern a lot of what is done, at least in abstract instrumental composition. Music theater and opera are a different story.

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This is an entirely unexpected and mildly amusing article about "The strange and surprising musical histories of the GOP presidential candidates."

Before heading off to UCLA law school, Carly Fiorina once toyed with the idea of becoming a concert pianist. She eventually landed at another keyboard, settling in tech and rising to become the CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

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Over at the Guardian they have the Devil's Advocate interviewing András Schiff about his upcoming performance of the Goldberg Variations at the Royal Albert Hall. It's an amusing effort, but could have been a tad funnier:

TDA: Are you going to play all the repeats?

AS: Yes.

TDA: Why? It’s going to be terribly long and boring.

AS: I beg to differ. Bach has specifically asked for the repeats, and this is a must. It is not a matter of choice. The structure is symmetrical, the Aria is in two halves, both 16 bars long, and each half is to be repeated. All the variations follow this pattern. The music is of such complexity that a second hearing is required; it gives the listener a second opportunity to hear the material again, and the player another chance to correct certain shortcomings. In tennis terms this is our “second service”.

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Also at the Guardian is a longer piece by Ed Vulliamy that offers a rather frothy argument, stuffed with anecdote and light on analysis, to the effect that:

We should be sick and tired of the ubiquitous partition of “classical” from “pop”, in schedules and among audiences and fans; in some cases the bigotry – and ignorance of the other – is entirely mutual, and always tedious. After all, Jimi Hendrix cited Handel and Mahler among his major influences, while Dmitri Shostakovich – who outlived Hendrix by five years – loved (and composed) jazz and comic operetta. He even wrote a ballet about football.

Ed reveals his basic assumptions with phrases like these:

Not much good art ever came from conservatives or conservatism

He is thoroughly convinced that the fundamental nature of art is to be revolutionary, political and shocking--and certainly some art has been. To his credit, he admits that sometimes producers go too far and that not all artistic "gambles" pay off.

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This is a bit out there: a tenor has brain surgery and sings Schubert during the operation:

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Via Slipped Disc we find this article on the disappearance of music critics in America:

Both guests estimate that there are currently about a dozen classical music critics at U.S. newspapers, down from about 65 only two decades ago.

There's even a map, though I notice that they leave out Canada entirely. I wonder how many are left up North? Two or three in Montreal, one or two in Toronto, one in Vancouver? The piece at Slipped Disc has some entertaining comments.

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 At the New Yorker, Alex Ross weighs in on the opera scene in the new Tom Cruise thriller, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation:

The tendency to associate classical music with murderous insanity is a curious neurosis of the American pop-cultural psyche. There is little evidence of such a predilection among real-life serial killers, who seem to prefer Black Sabbath, AC/DC, REO Speedwagon, and, of course, the Beatles.

But, thankfully, the new movie goes against all those stereotypes. Read the whole article.

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Over at Sinfini Music there is a surprisingly interesting article about piano performance then and now that delves into the subtleties of technique and interpretation:

Hough cites Friedman’s 1933 recording of Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat, No.2, Op.55, as an example. Fortunately, there’s little of the thin, scratchy brittleness common to old records. The instrument glows with a warm bass and a singing treble. More importantly, Friedman’s playing is tender, unhurried and lovingly detailed; you can trace the music’s multiple inner lines. Notes perfectly match the decay of preceding ones, so there’s little harshness or false accenting. The whole performance is so perfectly paced and proportioned, it feels like one, long breath. Yet: ‘This style of playing is no longer sought after,’ says Hough. ‘Audiences – and pianists – don’t know it’s there.’

There are also some excellent clips by way of example. (I don't think, by the way, that the same might be said of guitarists. Early recordings of guitarists in the early 20th century like Andrés Segovia do not reveal wonderful subtleties so much as rhythmic waywardness.)

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For our envoi today, let's listen to that 1933 recording of Ignaz Friedman: