Friday Miscellanea

Here is a fun item explaining some curious things about the viola including why there are so many viola jokes: Why Is the Viola the Butt of So Many Jokes?

These jokes are nothing new, and so firmly cemented in many musical communities that the topic “Viola Jokes” earned its own Wikipedia page. Violist and Indiana University of Pennsylvania professor Carl Rahkonen’s article No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore notes that while soprano jokes often play on the diva stereotype and conductor jokes poke fun at the maestro god complex, viola jokes mock trial (perceived) musical incompetence. Since effective humor hinges on the unexpected, Rahkonen argues that these jokes have ceased to be funny, and essentially serve to enforce a musical hierarchy, and violists are always at the bottom.

The article goes on to discuss the interesting history of the viola and some particularly nice repertoire.

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Looks like I might be in the Vancouver area next May as that is when we are planning to premiere my  new string quartet. It will be dedicated to the Pro Nova Ensemble who will give the first performances in North and West Vancouver. I will let you know the dates as soon as they are decided. I don’t know how many readers of the blog are in that general area, but whoever you are, I extend a general invitation to either or both of the concerts. There will probably be CDs available for purchase. If anyone is interested why don’t we schedule a meet-up? I’m sure there would be lots of suitable places!

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A whole bunch of posts over at Slipped Disc about the Tchaikovsky competition, but perhaps the most striking is the one about the concerto reversal. One stage of this grueling competition asks the pianists to play two big virtuoso concertos back to back. The Chinese contestant was expecting to play Tchaikovsky, then Rachmaninoff, but instead the order was reversed and announced, only in Russian. So when the orchestra began he was absolutely flummoxed. Here is the clip:

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Also at Slipped Disc an item about a last minute change of pianists:

Gabriela Montero had bought tickets to hear Martha and Maria Joao Pires play four-hand in Hamburg and had booked her flights from Barcelona. Last night at one in the morning, the phone rang. ‘Gabrielita,’ said Martha, ‘Pires has had to cancel on Wednesday night. Will you play the Schubert F Minor Fantasie with me? And could you do some improvisations?’.

Gabriela says: ‘So, that’s where I’ll be tonight. Not sitting in the audience, but sitting onstage next to my dear Martha bringing to life these gorgeous 20 minutes of other-worldly inspiration.'

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And again at Slipped Disc, notice that one of the Salzburg concerts that I have a ticket for that was to be conducted by Mariss Jansons will instead be conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Should be quite a treat as I have not heard him conduct. Jansons has cancelled all his engagements this summer due to illness.

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Canada has a new singing star. Jeremy Dutcher is an indigenous member of the Wolastoqiyik tribe from New Brunswick. Here is a story in the San Francisco Classical Voice:

Interviews with Jeremy Dutcher figure among the new demands on a Canadian First Nations (indigenous) singer-pianist who’s risen rapidly to international attention. The 28-year-old Toronto resident needs now and then to take a break from the clamor, to return to something like the pastoral pace of his raising in the Maritime province of New Brunswick, as a member of the Wolastoqiyik [pronounced Wuh-last-o-key-yik] tribe.

I first witnessed Dutcher a year ago, at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, performing on piano and singing in his tribe’s native Wolastoq language (the word denotes ‘the beautiful river’; renamed by the colonizers of New Brunswick as the St. John), in the basement of a church, a beautiful historical landmark. He hadn’t yet won Canada’s prestigious Polaris Prize, nor its Grammy-equivalent Juno Awards. Both of these wins would recognize his debut self-produced album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, translated as Songs of the People of the Beautiful River, tracks from which were presented in Montreal and will be heard here this Saturday when Dutcher appears at 1 p.m. at the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.

Dutcher incorporates in his live and recorded music an unusual and affecting act of legacy, playing transcribed wax recordings from 1911 by an early anthropologist of a tribal elder singing and speaking, and following the melodies with his own heldentenor voice and mellifluous keyboard compositions. The method and quality of his approach derive from his training, including classical voice with Marcia Swanston at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

That sounds fascinating! Let's have a listen. This is his performance of Sakomawit at this year's Juno awards (Canadian equivalent to the Grammys):

Ooph! Well, the costuming is certainly unusual. Was that a mesh t-shirt over short-shorts underneath the cape? Canada has been fetishizing their native peoples for decades now and this looks like the perfect fulfillment of that project done as a 70s rock ballad. And no, that's not a heldentenor voice, at least not one that would ever get a job singing Wagner.

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I have probably told the story of Artur Schnabel before. He was one of the greatest pianists of the first half of the 20th century, particularly known for his Beethoven. For many years he simply refused to record the Beethoven piano sonatas because of a fear that someone, someday would listen to the recording while eating a ham sandwich. Yes, by today's standards, just a tad elitist! I have similar feelings when I realize that if I issue a CD people might be listening to it on a laptop. Even worse, no-one listens to CDs anymore so it will be streamed over an iPhone and listened to via earbuds. Shudder! Here, via ShellyPalmer, is the story of how we got to where we are:

The world of recorded music was irrevocably changed in October 2001 when Apple introduced the iPod. While it is well remembered as a stepping stone to the greatest comeback in American corporate history, the iPod is less well remembered for dealing the final, almost fatal, blow to sonic quality.

The iPod came with the iconic white earbuds. The wired version was prominently featured in the equally iconic iBod campaign. As pretty and expensive ($29 if purchased separately) as earbuds were, the transducers (the little speakers in each ear) probably cost Apple 29 cents. I’m pretty sure Apple spent more on the packaging than it did on the hardware. To say that earbuds offered the least emotionally satisfying audio experience possible would be a compliment.

When you combine “lossy” compression with 29-cent earbuds, you get the world of recorded music as mass marketed by Steve Jobs. You also get the death of sonic quality. The funny thing is, nobody noticed.

Hey, I noticed! Read the whole thing.

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For our envoi today, let's pay some homage to the viola. This is Mozart's lovely duo concerto for violin, viola and orchestra, the Sinfonia Concertante. The soloists are Wolfram Brandi (violin) and Yulia Devneka (Viola) and the Staatskapelle Berlin is conducted by Daniel Barenboim: