Friday Miscellanea

Here is an item from The Guardian that might spark some comments: The 30 best films about music, chosen by musicians.

There is, of course, far more to these movies than money-spinning: a good biopic or documentary can bring the songs to life, and illuminate the struggles of their creators. But what do musicians make of this lively cinematic category? We asked six eminent songwriters – including a few who have scored movies, and others who have been the subject of movies – to each pick their five favourite music films.

So I guess we won't see much about films about classical musicians. There are some interesting films on the list like Latcho Drom, but they are mostly pop-oriented. Even though I shouldn't have a vote as I religiously avoid films about musicians, I would rate Amadeus as the best film about music.

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Here is a video clip that might interest you: how Steinway pianos are made. Not sure what has changed since Steinway was bought by a hedge fund in 2013.

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There are people who curate libraries? Gwyneth Paltrow Hired a Personal Book Curator—Here's What He Chose For Her Shelves. I volunteer to curate a music libary for you--but it won't be based on color!

Thatcher Wine, a long-time bibliophile and collector, tapped into this concept in 2001, sourcing rare, out-of-print books to build beautiful libraries based on interest, author, and even color for his clients. Since then, Wine has curated the bookshelves of Gwyneth Paltrow and New York’s NoMad hotel; fans include Laura Dern and Shonda Rhimes.

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Visiting Slipped Disc via the back door, here is a review by Norman Lebrecht over at Ludwig van Toronto:

Pfitzner’s fallen reputation is sometimes ascribed to his gruesome flirtation with the Nazis but this concerto suggests something more organically at fault. Each of four movements is introduced by a promising idea, which promptly gets lost in a mound of bombastic waffle. I have seldom heard a piece that is so utterly all-over-the-place, so directionless and devoid of purpose that the eye strays to the wristwatch (only 40 more minutes to go) and the ear prays for an armistice.

I do so enjoy negative reviews like these. Much more entertaining than the usual puff piece.

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Hat tip to Slipped Disc for this entertaining clip of the top five page-turn disasters:

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Alex Ross has a piece up at The New Yorker on an opera that fascinates him: The Endless, Grisly Fascination of Richard Strauss’s “Salome”

For a long time, few people took “Salome” seriously. Strauss, who affected the manners of a card-playing businessman, appeared not to give it much deep thought himself. At an early rehearsal, he said, “Gentlemen, there are no difficulties or problems. This is a scherzo with a fatal conclusion.” One who did register the opera’s importance was Schoenberg, who, circa 1906, often had its score open on his piano. “Perhaps in twenty years’ time someone will be able to explain these harmonic progressions theoretically,” he said to his students, six of whom accompanied him to “Salome” in Graz. (So I discovered by reading hotel guest lists in the Graz newspapers.) Many of the building blocks of Schoenberg’s post-tonal style—which came into being between 1907 and 1909—can be found in “Salome,” which introduced a new kind of frenzied, helter-skelter aesthetic into the music of the day. One recurring tic is a rapid run of notes that gives way to a trill—a kind of scurry-and-shake gesture. This became part of the lingua franca of modern music.

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As I have pointed out a few times: Blow to 10,000-hour rule as study finds practice doesn't always make perfect

The work is the latest blow to the 10,000-hour rule, the idea promoted in Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 book, Outliers, which has been taken to mean that enough practice will make an expert of anyone. In the book, Gladwell states that “ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness”.

“The idea has become really entrenched in our culture, but it’s an oversimplification,” said Brooke Macnamara, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. “When it comes to human skill, a complex combination of environmental factors, genetic factors and their interactions explains the performance differences across people.”

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Wynton Marsalis has written a violin concerto and the premiere recording features soloist Nicola Benedetti. The Violin Channel has the story and here is the first movement, Rhapsody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=211&v=lTsAkAHMvf4

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Terry Teachout discovers an interesting quote from Lennox Berkeley:

“True originality in an artist does not consist in his being peculiar, but in his being peculiar to himself.”

Lennox Berkeley, “Britten and His String Quartet” (The Listener, May 27, 1943)

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Let's have some Lennox Berkeley (pronounced "Barkeley") for our envoi today. Encouraged by Julian Bream he composed quite a lot for guitar including a song cycle and a concerto. Here is his Sonatina, op. 52 recorded by Tal Hurwitz in a studio at the Mozarteum in 2012: