Friday Miscellanea

Well, that was quite a week, wasn't it? And I hear that there was some sort of election? No, not the British Columbia provincial election, that was a couple of weeks ago. But never mind, we have more important things to discuss starting with an interesting performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations as a ballet:

That's just a sample, but the pianist, Pavel Kolesnikov, has a new recording just released and reviewed in The Guardian:

Just when you think there are enough recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, here comes one that makes the music sound fresh off the page. The pianist Pavel Kolesnikov says he had “shied away” from performing Bach until he was invited to collaborate with the dancer and choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker on the Goldbergs; the result, with De Keersmaeker dancing and Kolesnikov playing live, has been seen by a few lucky European audiences this year.

Recorded in the studio, Kolesnikov’s performance stands alone: there is certainly no sense of the equation being less than perfectly balanced. The theme sings softly and simply – and then the first variation bursts out, speaking clearly, the two melodic lines chasing each other down the keyboard like kittens. These contrasts of texture, between softness and defined edge, at first make it feel as if the music is going in and out of focus – but that’s not quite it, because every single note is set forth by Kolesnikov with crystal clarity. It might rather be that we are moving in and out of Kolesnikov’s head: some variations feel “public” and consciously articulated, while some unfold as if privately.

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Over at Slipped Disc we are alerted to a new height (or bottom?) in artist marketing with this cover for a Scarlatti recording:

And it is fairly clear that the performance itself is not by a real pianist at all, but a MIDI file.

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The Berlin Philharmonic did a rather unusual encore the other day, after the government announced a new ban on concerts. Here they are conducted by Kiril Petrenko in a performance of John Cage's 4'33 for any instrument or combination of instruments.

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You can watch online performances of the Vienna Staatsoper at this link:

https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/calendar

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And on a completely different note, here is an essay on the role of "theory" in the teaching of the humanities: Who’s Afraid of Theory?

The Theory Wars, that is the administrative argument over which various strains of 20th-century continental European thought should play in the research and teaching of the humanities, has never exactly gone away, even while departments shutter and university work is farmed out to poorly-paid contingent faculty. Today you’re just as likely to see aspersions on the use of critical theory appear in fevered, paranoid Internet threads warning about “Cultural Marxism” as you are on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, even while at many schools literature requirements are being cut, so as to make the whole debate feel more like a Civil War reenactment than the Battle of Gettysburg. In another sense, however, and Butler’s partisans seem to have very much won the argument from the ‘80s and ‘90s—as sociologically inflected Theory-terms from “intersectionality” to “privilege” have migrated from Diacritics to Twitter (though often as critical malapropism)—ensuring that this war of attrition isn’t headed to armistice anytime soon.

Read the whole thing for an informative and sympathetic look at the history.

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Bachtrack gives us Music vs. Covid-19: the state of play in Asia, America and Oceania. The whole thing is worth looking at. Here is a sample:

In Japan, where you are enjoined not to yell “Bravo”, people are making “Bravo cards” to be waved in the air instead; one orchestra is selling a “Bravo towel” in its foyer. And to understand Japanese rules on concert seating, look no further than the chequerboard-like pattern of “Ichimatsu-monyo”, a textile named after its most ardent fan, one of the great Kabuki actors of the 18th century.

Let's conclude with a note of optimism from Opera America’s Marc Scorca: “I believe that in the next years as we come out of this crisis, there will be a blend of a return to some of the old and incorporation of the new. That blend will be healthy for opera in the United States.”

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And for sheer amusement value, here is an ad that has been popping up everywhere lately:

https://training.breakthroughguitar.com/ggth-1?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8qHOxPfr7AIVxAs_Ch0WjQC-EAEYASAAEgLbVfD_BwE

The biggest mistake guitar players make is that they try to LEARN their way to PLAYING the guitar... 

… Thinking that if they just keep learning…

… If they just keep practicing… 

… Eventually it will all connect.

And it WON’T! 

It CAN’T! 

Because it’s impossible to THINK your way to PLAYING well! 

Legendary Guitarist Joe Pass famously said “You can’t think and play”

Because it doesn’t work that way! The two are opposites!

THINKING… is what causes all the PLAYING problems in the first place!

This is both hilariously wrong and somewhat true, all at the same time!

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Let's have some music! Today's envoi is a complete performance of Donizetti's Anna Bolena at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2011: