Friday Miscellanea

I'll bet that got your attention! This is from a piece by James Lileks, who, if you don't know him, writes pretty acerbic but hilarious stuff sometimes. The bit about music is down a ways and consists of a long fisking of an article about white supremacy in music. Here is a taste. The passage in italics is from the article he is commenting on.

It’s time for us to recognize that engaging with these institutions, that contributing to the belief that our participation in composer diversity initiatives is doing anything to reshape the institution of classical music, and that classical music is an agent of cultural change instead of a placeholder to prevent composers of color from forming our own cultures, is ultimately furthering colonization and prevents us from creating artwork capable of real, genuine expression.

Fantastic! Everyone who’s not white stop participating in those peculiar “composer diversity initiatives” that White Supremacists have cleverly developed to colonize things. Form your own cultures! Break free of all the hideous strictures that prevent people from composing music. We can form militias that strike back against the roving gangs of Boosey & Hawkes who break down the doors in the garrets and burn the scores of the colonized..

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The Friday Miscellanea used to be so carefree and whimsical, but it is hard to find those kind of items these days. Take this piece, for example: PC Culture is Destroying Creative Freedom.

Totalitarian regimes — from Germany’s Third Reich to the Soviet Union to Communist China— have consistently imposed censorship on the freedoms of thought and expression of their citizens. And today, we can witness the same pattern repeated here in America through “cancel culture.”

Hailing from a country where freedom of speech is widely prohibited, I can tell you this: once you have lived for years under conditions of censorship and you now have complete freedom of expression, you do not want to go back to censorship. And yet here I am, watching as America falls more and more into self-censorship.

Yes, there are certainly a list of topics and ideas that I assiduously avoid here, but I don't feel any such restriction when I am writing instrumental music. So far. Mind you, arranging for performances has become rather problematic!

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Over at Slipped Disc, Max Raimi, violist with the Chicago Symphony, explains what is wrong with the New York Times piece arguing against blind auditions. You should read the whole thing as it is hard to excerpt, but this quote focuses on what was bothering me in the Tommasini article:

A significant percentage, very possibly a majority of our auditions, end up with us failing to hire a musician.  I am currently on the audition committee to find a new Principal Viola.  We have had two rounds of auditions—prelims, semis, and finals—and have heard well over 100 candidates.  We even tried out two of the more promising players, having them play a few concerts as Principal.  The committee and our Music Director, Riccardo Muti, have been in agreement that none of the candidates meet our standards.  Mr. Tommasini’s premise, that there is any number of more-or-less interchangeable candidates who can fill the openings in our major orchestras and the decision of which of them to select is essentially arbitrary is a fantasy.

Yes, despite Juilliard, it is not the case that there are herds of "people who are essentially indistinguishable in their musicianship and technique.” As Max Raimi points out, there is a sleight of hand there in including musicianship alongside technique. Yes, there are lots of accomplished technicians, but an orchestra, as well as a string quartet, is looking for someone who is musically compatible and can play the notes.

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Looking around for something cheery and whimsical, I went to The Atlantic and found this: The Song of the Summer Is in Chaos.

What does summer sound like this year? I can only speak for myself, and the answer is that summer sounds like a cartoon character singing over a scratched reggaeton CD. “Mequetrefe,” by the Venezuelan experimental musician Arca, has lately been my default get-moving song, though the places I have to get moving to are mostly the couch and the grocery store. The song is a mess of glitchy noise, with a catchy, hopeful groove that disintegrates and reconstitutes. Restless energy, unpredictable disruption, and sunshine—it’s very now.

Here is the song he is talking about:

 

About the best thing you could say about that is that it is mercifully brief.

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We have a new Beethoven biography from Laura Tunbridge reviewed in The Guardian:

Tunbridge’s pithy A Life in Nine Pieces is different and welcome: a biography presented through the focus of nine different compositions, each casting light on aspects of Beethoven’s life, character and, given equal and readily comprehensible attention, the music. Her choices span early to late repertoire: from one of his first successes in Vienna, the Septet, to the Grosse Fuge, via Symphony No 3 “Eroica”, the opera Fidelio, and the Missa Solemnis. Tunbridge, an Oxford professor here publishing her first non-academic book, writes clearly, explaining technical terms on the go and with ease: never an easy combination.

More interested in reality than myth – with Beethoven, there’s rather too much of it about – she is particularly sharp-eyed, and refreshing, on the practicalities that shape any artist’s life. How to make a living is a priority. “Reference is made throughout this book to the sums Beethoven earned,” reads the first introductory note. “He was strapped for cash,” she observes baldly, in those or similar words, more than once. How to find a venue, how to get a score published, how many rehearsals can be squeezed in (usually only one, leading to some disastrous premieres), how much tickets should cost, how to wheedle rich sponsors into donating, how to deal with the uncomfortable business of self-promotion: all make the difference between food on the table or hunger, performance or silence. Ask any composer working today. The issues have not changed.

Exactly!

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From an economist, a fresh idea about arts funding: The Arts Need a Bailout, Too.

Arts vouchers are similar to education vouchers except that they cover the arts. The government would hand them out to each American and allow state and local governments to specify which institutions and individuals would be eligible to receive such vouchers as payment. Unlike direct grants to arts institutions, arts vouchers give consumers a big say in where aid goes. They could be more popular with voters, because they give each one a direct benefit — namely, cash in pocket (yes, they would have to spend it on the arts, but it’s still cash).

Most of all, vouchers would recognize that planning authorities, even at state and local levels, don’t always know which artistic forms will be popular. If some reallocations are inevitable — for instance out of nightclubs and into outdoor bluegrass festivals — vouchers will allow those preferences to be registered quickly.

Obviously, if state and local governments specify a narrow set of eligible recipients, arts vouchers aren’t much different than direct grants. In that case, little is lost. Still, one hopes that vouchers can be used more imaginatively. Imagine the city of Detroit allowing vouchers to be spent not just at the Detroit Institute of the Arts but also on hip-hop, street art and outdoor theatre.

Of course for the classically-minded this poses a few problems. Does Kanye West need to be bailed out to the same extent as the Chicago Symphony? How do we decide? Classical music has always been something more than a popularity contest. Right?

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Pop music isn't so much about the music any more: From Rihanna to Kanye West: Why Music’s Biggest Stars Aren’t Focused on Actual Music

Creating new albums is less important than leveraging fame to launch businesses that can boost profits, feed fans eager for news and extend celebrity beyond the shrinking shelf-life of music careers. This is a sign of how the economics of the industry have changed (streaming isn’t lucrative in the way that CDs once were, and there’s no longer stigma associated with “selling out”). It also indicates how music as a stand-alone art form has lost clout as a cultural force and become more of a promotional tool. 

Roughly 20% to 50% of the typical superstar’s income now comes from revenue unrelated to music activities, music-industry executives say. When A-list acts aren’t touring, things like cosmetics lines, American Idol judgeships and sponsored Instagram posts can account for the lion’s share—80% or more—of income. That’s up dramatically from a decade ago when such side hustles usually didn’t exceed 10% or 20% of income and were negligible for most artists, insiders say.

That's likely behind the Wall Street Journal paywall, but you get the idea.

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For our envoi, a piece I have not heard for many years, the early Septet by Beethoven: