The Metropolitan Opera announced Tuesday that Plácido Domingo had agreed to withdraw from his slate of scheduled performances at the opera house following allegations of sexual harassment made by multiple women in two Associated Press stories. The opera legend indicated that he would never again perform at the Met.
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We have obtained a pre-publication look at an upcoming Babylon Bee article titled: Opera companies in the US, unable to confirm that no tenors, basses or baritones have committed sexual harassment against their co-stars, promise that all future productions will feature women-only casts. Directors of Russian opera productions most affected.
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Warning: exposure to this next clip may make you feel that life is no longer worth living, at least if you happen to love the middle movement of the Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo:
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I don't know if music is in such dire straits that this is the most creative and interesting musician practicing today, but it certainly seems as if the MacArthur people think so: SMALL PICKINGS: JUST ONE MUSICIAN AMONG 26 MACARTHUR GENIUS GRANTS.
And the clip:Among the 26 creators and thinkers who will each receive $625,000 MacArthur Fellowships over the next five years, there is one musician.Here’s the citationMary Halvorson, 38, guitarist and composer“Experimenting at the intersection of jazz and rock with a signature sound on her instrument and an aesthetic that evolves and surprises with each new album and configuration of bandmates.”
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Another in the seeming never-ending series of stories about long hidden sexual harassment in the world of classical music: Music's Perpetually Open Secret. The discussion there is very hard to excerpt, so go read the whole thing.
I have just been reading some of the journalism that was written about Stravinsky's Rite of Spring around the time of its premiere and it is remarkable how it focussed on the music itself and the choreography of the ballet. Magazines even published pages from the score as musical examples. The whole focus was on the aesthetic innovations of the music. Not a trace of that in the above article! This is as close as they get to actual mention of the music:
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Anne Midgette, one of my favourite music critics, is resigning from her post at the Washington Post.
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I am developing this theory about the social presence of music: all discussion of music in mainstream society must now revolve around politics and specifically identity politics because the general public no longer has the knowledge or interest in the aesthetic aspects of music. Case in point, this initiative: Hearing injustice a concert based on a group of pieces responding to the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Another piece I saw today was about the role of black composers in American music. What is common to both of these stories and, frankly, to just about all the other stories in the mainstream media, is that the subject matter is immediately comprehensible to any reader, even if they have absolutely no knowledge of nor interest in music as such. Everyone understands the ideas of sexual harassment and racism. No need to explain anything. On the surface at least. And if there are explanations they are political or social ones, nothing to do with the music as music.As Portland composer Kenji Bunch watched last year’s confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh, which included accusations of sexual assault, he “had this weird idea of a concert” based on the hearings.“It was such a fraught moment, a watershed event,” Bunch recalled. “Something about the theatricality of that hearing just seemed to me that it could work for this kind of artistic exploration.”
I have just been reading some of the journalism that was written about Stravinsky's Rite of Spring around the time of its premiere and it is remarkable how it focussed on the music itself and the choreography of the ballet. Magazines even published pages from the score as musical examples. The whole focus was on the aesthetic innovations of the music. Not a trace of that in the above article! This is as close as they get to actual mention of the music:
She and Bunch both believe classical music brings unique authority to bear on today’s issues. “We have a richer harmonic palette that lets you explore complex emotional things without words, so people can bring their own meaning to them,” she says.And, of course, that comment about a "richer harmonic palette" is mere hand-waving likely based on no actual musical facts. I seriously doubt that their "harmonic palette" is any richer than that of Stravinsky or Schoenberg.
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That brings us to our envois for today, of which we will have two. First, a piece for piano trio and percussion by Kenji Bunch. (I have heard the Ahn Trio play music by Kenji Bunch in a couple of concerts in our summer chamber music festival.)
Good stuff, but the harmonic palette is not hugely rich. Next, the Piano Concerto, op. 42 by Arnold Schoenberg:
20 comments:
A trivia (well, not to some people) question. Does Maestro Sokolov ever perform transcriptions of any composer's work?
I have been reminding myself since two a.m. to ask this. Now I can return to the usual morning routine. :-)
Dr Althouse finds the Bee's article to be not funny.
I do appreciate the carillon, though not in the Rodrigo; Frank Steijns is the stadsbeiaardier, the municipal carilloneur, of the cities of Maastricht, Weert, and Heerlen in the Netherlands. In October 1994 he was appointed city carillonneur of Weert. On Saturdays at 2.30 pm he plays the carillon of the St. Martinus Church in Weert, one of the heaviest carillons in the Netherlands at 20,000 kilos. In 1995 he was appointed deputy city carillonneur of Maastricht, alongside his father Mathieu Steijns, who held this position since 1952. In 1997 he succeeded his father, making him the 13th city carillonneur of Maastricht. Every Saturday at 12.30 he plays the historic city carillon in the tower of the Maastricht city hall and on special occasions also the carillon of the St. Servatius Basilica. He also succeeded his father in Heerlen in 1995 as city carillonneur. He plays the carillon of the St. Pancratius Church on market days in the summer.
First of all, thanks for your technical information about Blogger and embedding. Haven't had a chance to get into that yet, but I will.
Re Sokolov: no, to my knowledge he does not play transcriptions, unless you consider playing harpsichord and fortepiano music on a modern Steinway as a transcription. Artists of his vintage and stature I know from my own experience tend to regard transcriptions with a certain horror.
Dr. Althouse is an interesting mix, isn't she? I have long suspected her of having an atrophied sense of humor.
In Victoria, British Columbia, where I lived for many years, there is a large carillion in a very public square between the Parliament buildings and the BC Museum. When I lived there a Dutch carilloneur would give a little concert every lunchtime. The instrument and its dedicated building, plus the services of the carilloneur were a gift of the Dutch government and people to the government and people of Canada. Why? Because in WWII it was Canadian armed forces that ultimately liberated Holland from the Nazis.
A richer harmonic palette, sure, sure. I had read that OAW piece (Brett Campbell is a good fellow who goes out of his way to be helpful to clueless readers): one grants their sincerity but can't help but roll one's eyes. Bunch believes that the stories shared through new classical music in this concert and FearNoMusic’s social issue-oriented season as a whole can play a constructive role in diminishing the differences that divide us. Anyway, his Groovebox Fantasy last night was entertaining, I imagine in the same way that André Rieu's performances are; I can do without 'em in the subscription series. The Bruch Scottish Fantasy (had never heard it; the soloist, Bella Hristova, attended the Mozarteum and Curtis) and Tchaikovsky 5th were both given good outings. First night of the season and there was lots of chatter about all the things you'd expect in Eugene: community, inclusion, diversity. The big news was/is that Francesco Lecce-Chong ("Eugene Symphony has Francesco Lecce-Chong-- the closest thing to matching the rock star vibes that Leonard Bernstein brought to the classical music world in the 1950s", ahem) has had his contract renewed through the 2022/2023 season.
The Bruch is a pretty good piece--I used to have a Jascha Heifetz recording of it on vinyl.
You do win at the Trivia! Someone at the Sokolov Facebook page posted a video of Sokolov playing Bach (the video is here at YouTube); the uploader of the video describes the piece as being the Busoni version-- and the question (both at YouTube and on the Sokolov Facebook page) became, Busoni or Kempff?
Then M.B. settled the question. "Regarding the transcription; Sokolov doesn't play transcriptions, neither Busoni nor Kempf. He plays according the organ scores. There are not too many notes, so it can be 'easily' performed without legs. It is not transcription unless you want to call it the 'Bach-Sokolov transcription'. ��
All this information is from Grigory Sokolov but who knows, maybe you know better than Sokolov. ��"
Everyone there treats M.B. as if he were the oracle of Euterpe & I certainly have no reason to doubt.
Thanks, Marc! Higher praise was never heard... I have Sokolov's Art of Fugue and you might say that was a transcription until you realized that Bach did not specify instrumentation in the original.
Marc, Sokolov played Siloti’s transcription of Bach’s Prelude in B minor BWV 855a a few years ago. You can find a video clip by Arte on Youtube.
Yes, you are correct, I had forgotten about that piece. He played it as an encore, I believe?
Yes, it was one of the encores.
Brian, Auke, On the Sokolov page, M.B. has now put up what he says is an excerpt from a Russian television program (that aired between '88 and '96) called Пятое колесо, Fifth Wheel, that includes both the BWV 639 and the BWV 855a, what is described as 'Bach/Siloti'. It's clear to me that the video of the Bach BWV 639 and of the BWV 855a is from two sources edited together (the audio of each piece individually is discoverable at YouTube, certainly)-- that one or both of them might also have been broadcast as part of the Пятое колесо episode is, obviously, possible. M.B. doesn't strike me as someone who spends much time watching video edits etc and may not realize how clearly (even I noticed...) the video he was given is an artefact of the editor's art.
I must pester him some more. Entirely possible that, whatever his current practice, S. did perform Aleksandr Siloti's Bach in the past-- hard to explain the ARTE attribution etc otherwise. D.L. is going to ask M. Sokolov about this when she meets him in Hamburg in April. :-)
Have been listening off and on to Francesca Caccini's Alcina (a century older than Handel's and the first known opera by a woman) but I expect that Sokolov's Art of Fugue will end the day.
And that will be a transcendental way to end the day, and the week.
Marc, I’ve heard him perform Bach/Siloti four times in 2012: February 29 in Cologne, June 4 in Essen, November 18 in Leipzig and November 28 in Dortmund. Each time it was the 5th and penultimate encore.
Auke, what a year that must have been!
So far as the 'from the organ score or via transcriptions' question goes, I should perhaps make it clear that I have no personal investment in whether the 'Facebook people' are correct or incorrect; am a late-comer to the glories of M. Sokolov and know only superficialities about the details of his performance history. But I'll happily cite the dates and locations you mention and see if M.B. or anyone else cares to comment further on the proposition that he 'never performs transcriptions'. Perhaps what was meant was that he doesn't include any in the published programs. :-)
In my defense: the February/June program was different from the November program ;-)
I think the Bach/Siloti piece is a case of him playing a long-standing favorite piece from his younger years before, perhaps, he developed a policy about transcriptions. A lot of performers have pieces like that in their fingers.
I noted Auke's annus mirabilis solokovianus at the Facebook group. M.B.: 'Yes of course, Bach/Siloti in 2012, yes, yes, certainly, of course he is right.' (Am paraphrasing there but I knew something was up at that point; then I asked how he squared that with his earlier comments re 'no transcriptions', more or less in Bryan's words at 1253 with other semi-apologetic nonsense.) 'I was referring only to the chorale prelude Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ BWV 639 when I wrote that about S. playing it only from the organ score'. Ah. I will re-read through the entire thread, ha, but it is rather embarrassing to (evidently) have to admit that only I managed to misconstrue his earlier comments, ahem. :-)
Of course, you can only misconstrue something if you were actively thinking about it in the first place.
8-)
Regarding Siloti, the arranger of the aforementioned Bach piece, this is Alexander Ilyich Siloti (1863 - 1945) who was a piano virtuoso when young, and later studied with Liszt in Weimar. Between 1903 until just after the Revolution he directed and conducted a notable concert series in St. Petersburg that was the occasion of some early Stravinsky premieres.
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