Does Art Have to be Serious, Deep or Profound?

If we look back one hundred years to the goals and attitudes of artists at that time, we notice considerable differences from today. Artists like Wassily Kandinsky were extremely concerned that their art have a spiritual dimension--he even wrote a book titled Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Many artists around the turn of the century were influenced by the theosophy of Helena Blavatsky. In music, Arnold Schoenberg, though not working from those kind of premises, also took the pursuit of Art with the greatest seriousness and was connected with the artist group Der Blaue Reiter before the First World War (Kandinsky was also a member). All of these artists took their vocation terribly seriously.

The great break with tradition that was Neo-Classicism (in music, not the visual arts) was a step away from the deep profundity of art music up to WWI and we could speculate as to why. But let's take our historical tour further. Looking at visual arts, we see another clearing away of the spiritual fog with the 'pop' art movement. In music, mind you, the post WWII saw the avant-garde and especially the total serialists, trying to reclaim the ground and return music to a high level of seriousness. But at the same time, John Cage and some other Americans were moving in the opposite direction with pieces that were intentionally unserious.

We don't really have the space, nor do you have the patience while I trace the details of music and art history through the 20th century, but I think it is safe to say that there has been an incremental lowering of the level of deep, spiritual profundity over the century. The reasons may have something to do with the horrors of two world wars and a holocaust, but asking why this happened might be best done in a different post. The fact is that it is pretty clear that it did happen. In visual arts we went from this:

to this in less than a century:

In music, from Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire:

to John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine:

Now here is where I depart from my usual narrative: I think it is perfectly ok to do contemporary art or music without profundity. Why the heck not? But perhaps it does need to be mentioned that this does not necessarily mean I am calling for manipulative shallow kitsch. There is still good art and bad art. But good art does not have to mean drearily profound art. It can mean art that sparkles, that is witty, that is light-hearted.

Recent Sketches

I mentioned a while back that after thirty years of using a computer pretty heavily, I felt the need for more analogue and less digital in my life. This partly came from frustration with trying to compose using music software when a pencil (and eraser!) and paper was far more useful. From that I wandered into sketching. At first I just tried following some instructional videos on YouTube and managed some modest representational sketches like this one of a peppermill:

I tried some portraiture as well, but all my faces look like desperately weird space aliens. One needs actual technique for that. I got some more materials to add to my graphite and charcoal pencils and as soon as I got some colored pencils, without a moment's thought, I started doing abstract sketches. They remind me of a Russian abstract painter whom I won't name! In any case, I have found doing these sketches very satisfying. The difference from music composition is that there I have this deep well of knowledge of both techniques and traditions so composition is a fairly complex process and takes a long time. It probably shouldn't! Whereas with sketches, I just sit down and let my simple abstract ideas flow. There are few technical issues as I am not trying to represent anything in the real world. These are just shapes and colors.

In any case, for your amusement and comment, here are four recent sketches.

A Progressive Reactionary

I have gotten a great deal out of blogging and I'm glad my readers have as well. So I venture to share some thoughts about music, art and life in general. I just ran across an article in the Wall Street Journal about one of those "progressive" projects that one tends to shake one's head at. Even Homer Gets Mobbed: A Massachusetts school has banned ‘The Odyssey.’ I'm not sure if that is behind the paywall, but this will give you an idea:

A sustained effort is under way to deny children access to literature. Under the slogan #DisruptTexts, critical-theory ideologues, schoolteachers and Twitter agitators are purging and propagandizing against classic texts—everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Dr. Seuss.

Their ethos holds that children shouldn’t have to read stories written in anything other than the present-day vernacular—especially those “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” as young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman writes in School Library Journal. No author is valuable enough to spare, Ms. Venkatraman instructs: “Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.”

This is a project that has been going on for a very, very long time, of course. But recently it has come to the fore. An example: way back when I first attended university, in 1971, the text for my German language course contained quite a few examples of actual literature: Goethe and other authors. When I entered graduate school many years later, in 1995, studying for a doctorate in musicology, I had to do another German course to fulfill the language requirement. I was amazed to see that the new textbook had eliminated every trace of literature and replaced it with samples from everyday life: advertisements, excerpts from news stories, that sort of thing. So this is nothing new. But the arrogant ruthlessness with which the project is furthered is more astonishing than ever.

In my view it is all based on a cluster of badly mistaken ideas about psychology, economics, moral philosophy and aesthetics. So when it comes to this kind of thing, I am a reactionary! Right now I am half way through re-reading the Odyssey in the Fagles translation and the idea that Homer is to be tossed out in favor of a mess of half-baked politically correct garbage is absurd. Mind you, if you want generations of dimensionless morons, this is just the thing. As so often, one asks oneself, is this kind of policy simple idiocy or is it actual evil? The quote comes to mind that "they" prefer us poor and stupid because we are easier to control. So often the progressive project seems nothing more than a naked grasp for power. They are going to tell us what we can read and what we can think. That should be enough to make anyone's blood boil!

But, on the other hand, when it comes to art, I am anything but a reactionary. My tastes, when it comes to sketching for example, run to Kandinsky-esque abstractions. While I love a great deal of older music, my tastes in contemporary music run to Morton Feldman, Steve Reich and Sofia Gubaidulina over Philip Glass, John Luther Adams and others who seem to be rehashing things we have heard many times before. In my own compositions I do not look back as I find that aesthetically impossible. I really do think that one has to find a new path.

I think that we have to look at the progressive project and ask ourselves, is this really "progressive" in any real sense? Or is it just the fevered dreams of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley become hideous reality? Behind all the buzzwords and rhetoric, is there much worthwhile in social justice and critical theory? Not that I can see.

But I am all in favor of real progress: the ascent of the great majority of humanity out of poverty in the last few decades, the new progress in returning to space from people like Elon Musk, the astonishing advances in technology that might connect humanity in new and productive ways (or cause us all to waste much of our time updating our FaceBook pages--your call!), the remarkable advances in medical technology that enabled us to create several vaccines for the coronavirus in mere months when it took a decade to do so for other diseases a few decades ago. Yes, in a thousand ways, we are progressing and advancing.

But there are still musty old ideas from dead philosophers and economists that threaten to strangle our mental freedoms. Ban Homer? Go ban yourself instead.

So that's me, a progressive reactionary. Here is Sofia Gubaidulina, another one:

More Lea Desandre

This is Lea Desandre singing an excerpt from the opera Orphée & Eurydice by Gluck. I love the European opera productions. This one is by the Opéra Comique. Amazing movements onstage ending with her simply sinking through the floor. Lovely production.

Friday Miscellanea

A very Merry Christmas to all the readers of the Music Salon. May you and your families have a peaceful and prosperous New Year as well!

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The Globe and Mail has a survey of fifteen books on music that came out this year: Fifteen music books that struck a chord in 2020. Alex Ross' book on Wagner sounds interesting:

When it comes to hearing music in a comprehensive way, few are better at cocking an ear than Alex Ross. A dozen years after the release of The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, The New Yorker’s classical critic returns with a 360-degree account of composer Richard Wagner’s influence on technology, culture, politics and modern music.

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Thanks to Slipped Disc for alerting us to this wacky encore by Dorel Golan:

It sounds a bit like Stravinsky doing an arrangement of a Joplin ragtime while hopped up on amphetamines, don't you think?

* * *

The Wall Street Journal has the story of the world's toughest busker: Neither Rain, Nor Snow Nor a Pandemic Discourages NYC’s Naked Cowboy

The Naked Cowboy is turning 50 this week. And if you ask me, he’s got plenty to celebrate. Every single day through the pandemic, the one-man tourist attraction showed up to do what he’s always done—perform in the middle of Times Square wearing only his hat, boots and tight, white underwear. He was out strumming and singing even when the district was deserted and he wasn’t making a dime.

Worth having a look just for the photo of him performing in a blizzard.

* * *

 Musicologists often are haring off after social justice and identity politics these days, so it is left to a mathematician to explain the theory behind Bach: Bach and My Musical Advent Calendar

If we keep going up by perfect fifths, we get a sequence of harmonious intervals known as the cycle of fifths. The first five notes in the cycle form the pentatonic scale, which is used in the music of many ancient cultures. If we keep going up to seven notes, we get the notes of the major scale prevalent in Western classical music. Taking 12 notes of the cycle of fifths produces the 12 notes of the piano keyboard.

After 12 steps, something fortuitous happens: We get to a note that is almost the same as the one we started with, but seven octaves higher. The 12 notes of the keyboard essentially come from this numerical coincidence between the frequencies for seven octaves and 12 fifths. But there is still a slight mismatch in the frequencies—less than a quarter of the distance between two adjacent notes.

Before Bach’s time, the typical approach was to “hide” this error in notes that the music was unlikely to use, like when you stuff your mess in a bedroom before guests come around. For example, if a piece of music is in the key of C major, it’s important for F and G to sound perfectly in tune, since they’re the fourth and fifth notes of the scale; but it’s less important for F sharp to sound right, since it will barely be used.

* * *

 Here is an article of a rare quality these days: simple praise of Beethoven, whose 250th birthday was Dec. 16. Beethoven and Freedom

The great composers create a sense of the infinite within the finitude of classical form, by manipulating musical time. Traditional as well as pop music work within the confines of regular time and fixed meter. Time itself becomes malleable in Western classical music. Mozart plays with time like a minor god; Beethoven challenges it directly. In his most characteristic works he presents the simplest possible musical material and subjects it to radical metrical transformation. 

By evoking the infinite out of finite temporality, Beethoven gives us not just an impression, but rather an existential participation in freedom. The composer confounds our expectations and plays hob with our temporal perception, demanding that we follow him through warps in the space-time continuum. In the Op. 111 he shows us that mortal man can achieve a presentiment of the infinite out of finite materials.

How nice to read something that does not accuse Beethoven of being a racist or sexist monster.

* * *

Canada's fetishization of multiculturalism never seems to have no limit. A ‘Messiah’ for the Multitudes, Freed From History’s Bonds: A polyglot, nonsectarian, gender-inclusive film from Canada remakes the Handel classic for today’s world.

A gay Chinese-Canadian tenor struts through the streets of Vancouver, joyously proclaiming that “ev’ry valley shall be exalted” as the camera focuses in on his six-inch-high stiletto heels.

A Tunisian-Canadian mezzo-soprano reimagines Jesus as a Muslim woman in a head scarf.

In Yukon, an Indigenous singer praises the remote snow-covered landscape in Southern Tutchone, the language of her ancestors.

“This is not your grandparents’ ‘Messiah,’” Spencer Britten, the tenor in heels, said in an interview. He and the other performers are part of “Messiah/Complex,” an iconoclastic new production of Handel’s classic oratorio, which draws on biblical texts to form a stylized narrative of suffering, hope and redemption. 

An 80-minute film featuring a dozen soloists from all corners of the country, this unabashed celebration of Canadian multiculturalism has recast the work as a series of deeply personal video narratives.

* * *

Interesting article on Mozart's visit to England when he was eight years old. How Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Came to Compose His First Symphony:

In some ways musically more interesting from that period is a series of sketches and drafts Wolfgang wrote down in a new manuscript book Leopold gave him. It would survive as “the London Notebook.” Father or son signed it in the front, “di Wolfgango Mozart à Londra 1764.” Here are forty-three ideas in various directions and states of completion, all of it, for a change, in Wolfgang’s own hand, which by now is neat and clear and would remain so for the rest of his life.

There are surprisingly few strikeouts or corrections in the London Notebook; probably he worked out the pieces at the clavier and then copied them down, relying on a remarkable memory for music, whether his own or works by others. The pieces, some incomplete, range from tentative to fascinating. Three of them may be sketches toward orchestral movements. Most striking is No. 15 in G Minor, a through-composed piece that deftly develops its opening ideas throughout and en route works in a quote from Gluck’s ballet Don Juan. Wolfgang may have looked at it as a harmonic study; its altered chords and modulations from key to key range farther than anything he had yet explored. Beyond that, there is a driving intensity to the piece that foreshadows a distinctive G-minor mood that would be with him to the end, most famously in his two symphonies in that key, one early and one late.

* * *

For our envoi today, a driving performance of the the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Prokofiev with Yuja Wang and the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Kyrill Petrenko:

 

Lovely Concert

Have no fear, despite it being Christmas Day, there will be a Friday Miscellanea tomorrow. And then I will start cooking because I am having guests over for a traditional Christmas dinner of turkey and trimmings.

Lea Desandre

But in the meantime, here is a lovely concert with mezzo Lea Desandre. She is singing Berlioz Nuits d'Été instead of her more usual early music but does a great job. The concert also features a performance of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez with guitarist Thibaut Garcia. Blogger won't embed. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm0_5wP3SVg

How to write a hook

The New Neo is one of my favorite blogs because she talks about a lot of things, like dance, that I don't know anything about. She is even interesting when she talks about things that she doesn't know much about, like song-writing: How to write a hook.

I started wondering how on earth someone writes a hook. Writing music is something I can’t imagine anyway, and I’m in awe of those who can do it. Even more so for those who can write a catchy hook that reels them in and makes for a hit. How, how, how do they keep their tune from being just some formless humming and meandering?

She quotes Tom Snow, composer of the Pointer Sisters' hit She's So Shy:

I had been plugging away for weeks trying to find a ‘hit’ hook. Everything I came up with sounded like derivative, melodic babble. Reduced to desperation one night I went into my studio after dinner and a few glasses of wine, set the Roland TR-808 to 120 beats per minute and started playing G minor arpeggios on my Prophet-5 synth. At least that was some viable form of music! That did the trick. Not having the pressure anymore of trying to come up with a smash hit, the vault opened up and within 30 minutes I had the melody, chord changes and a working title “She’s So Shy”.

That's pretty much exactly how it works: you keep plugging away with nothing happening for as long as it takes and then one day, the ideas just come to you. It is like musical creation is always something of an accident.

But here is why some people are good at composition and song-writing and others are not: two main reasons.

1. The professional knows when his ideas are crappy.
2. He also knows what to do with a good idea once he has one. 

Well, sure, there are lots of details, but that is basically it. If you plunk away long enough, something is going to come to mind. Then you just have to know what to do with it.

Late 19th Century German Music

Gustav Mahler, hiking in the Alps

After tying myself in knots over questions of moral agency and aesthetic premonition in regards to late 19th century German music a recent post received a number of incisive comments. My musings prompted a lot of comments and, I think, show once again the value of a blog like this. After much thought I have decided that my misgivings about late 19th century German music and its notional relationship to tragic events in the 20th century are nothing more than bias or prejudice with no real foundation in principle or perception.

I got that one wrong. And luckily, commentators were ready to step up and say so.

I like to think that I look at musical and artistic products with some fairness and balance so I guess I will have the opportunity to demonstrate this. I have never seen a good live production of a Richard Strauss opera in a major opera house, so I had already decided to request a ticket to the Salzburg Festival's production of Elektra. Now I think it would be a very good idea to also request tickets to at least one of the major performances of something by Mahler or Richard Strauss or Brahms, of which the festival program is well-provided. I might opt for a Mahler symphony on the grounds that there are a couple available and I have never heard a Mahler symphony performed live by a really major orchestra (the closest was No. 4 with the Montreal Symphony years ago).

So, mea culpa.

New Baroque Concert

Lutenist Thomas Dunford and mezzo Lea Desandre have been doing some great streaming concerts lately. This was put up just a couple of days ago and they are joined by Théotime Langlois de Swarte, violin and William Christie, clavecin.

Friday Miscellanea

 The Marketwatch section of the Wall Street Journal weighs in on the economics of musicians selling their catalogues:

And while Levine noted that he can’t speak to what’s actually going on in Dylan’s head, the legendary artist is 79 years old. And selling your entire catalog, or deciding whom to leave it to, is a complicated transaction at any age, at any time. “It’s not the kind of thing you want to wait to do when you are not in good shape,” Levine said.

As noted, Dylan is in a league of his own when it comes to his catalog sale — except for the Beatles, of course. But the Beatles’ situation was also more complicated because one person didn’t own the rights to all of the songs, the way Dylan owned the rights to most of his work.

“A lot of creators are known for two big songs or three big songs … with Dylan, there’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changin,’ ‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’ ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,’ ‘Forever Young,’ ” Levine observed. “Universal bought everything, all the rights, all the songs — it’s incredible.”

“It’s a win for Universal, and I think it’s a win for Dylan, too,” he added. “I can’t imagine he needed to sell this; I think he wanted to sell it, and he wanted his songs owned by somebody who would take care of them.”

Read the whole thing.

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This was inevitable, I suppose. Beside the Pointe: Diversity and bias obsessions come for Swan Lake.

Classical ballet has largely escaped the revisionist destruction that hit the opera and theater stages years ago. Amazingly, audiences could still see Swan Lake and La Bayadere as their choreographers and composers intended them, with all the conventions and costumes of nineteenth-century fairytale intact. To be sure, feminists have been agitating against the ethereal body type championed by choreographer George Balanchine, sadly to intermittent success. But the adolescent politicizing that has been inflicted on defenseless operas has been absent from the ballet stage. That immunity has undoubtedly now ended. Expect to see classical ballets wrenched awkwardly into dumbshows about social justice.

It is worth having a look at the whole article for some interesting points about classical dance traditions.

* * * 

Sometimes one gets the feeling that knowledge and learning itself has become not only dispensable, but entirely unfashionable. So it is reassuring to read that the modern growth of the fantasy genre was founded by two quite knowledgeable and scholarly people:

The heart of fantasy literature grows out of the fiction and scholarly legacy of two University of Oxford medievalists: J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis. It is well known that Tolkien and Lewis were friends and colleagues who belonged to a writing group called the Inklings where they shared drafts of their poetry and fiction at Oxford. There they workshopped what would become Tolkien’s Middle-earth books, beginning with the children’s novel The Hobbit (1937), and followed in the 1950s with The Lord of the Rings and Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series, which was explicitly aimed at children. Tolkien’s influence on fantasy is so important that in the 1990s the American scholar Brian Attebery defined the genre ‘not by boundaries but by a centre’: Tolkien’s Middle-earth. ‘Tolkien’s form of fantasy, for readers in English, is our mental template’ for all fantasy, he suggests in Strategies of Fantasy (1992). Lewis’s books, meanwhile, are iconic as both children’s literature and fantasy. Their recurring plot structure of modern-day children slipping out of this world to save a magical, medieval otherworld has become one of the most common approaches to the genre, identified in Farah Mendlesohn’s taxonomy of fantasy as the ‘portal-quest’.

What is less known is that Tolkien and Lewis also designed and established the curriculum for Oxford’s developing English School, and through it educated a second generation of important children’s fantasy authors in their own intellectual image. Put in place in 1931, this curriculum focused on the medieval period to the near-exclusion of other eras

* * *

Do they never tire of beating this dead horse: The Stubborn Classism of Classical Music. Yes, classical music is patronized by, largely enjoyed by and created by a rather select group of people. That's because it is emphatically not popular music. But there are always those who want to spin a more morally fraught narrative:

Few art forms on earth are more indebted to class privilege than Western classical music. For most of its history, it has relied on monarchs, aristocrats, and wealthy patrons even to exist. We have Haydn because of a prince, Mozart and Beethoven because of a baron, Stravinsky and Copland because of an heiress, and Wagner because of a king. We have an entire genre largely because, at Versailles in the seventeenth century, the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully was willing to indulge his employer, Louis XIV, by writing operas that glorified the splendors of the throne. Philanthropists, corporations, and trusts have displaced the kings and barons of yore, but as givers of grants and commissions, they might as well wear a crown.

 * * *

2020: The year the music died.

“It’s always a hard way to make a living, and now it seems almost impossible,” said singer-songwriter Inara George.

The costs of this year in music have been both systemic and intimate. Artists such as singer-songwriter John Prine, Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, Afropop titan Manu Dibango, jazz paterfamilias Ellis Marsalis and composer Harold Budd succumbed to COVID-19. Countless others have quietly struggled with addiction, mental health, isolation and financial ruin. Independent L.A. venues such as the Satellite have closed for good, and others — including the Troubadour, Bootleg Theater and Zebulon — say it’s a matter of time, depending on whether federal help ever arrives.

Meanwhile, talent agencies and booking firms like Paradigm slashed staff, and even global companies such as Coachella promoter AEG cut salaries and laid off employees. “We’ve simply never experienced times like these, in which our operations have come to a complete stop due to a force beyond our control,” AEG’s chief executive Dan Beckerman said in June. Live Nation, America’s largest concert promoter, saw its quarterly revenues annihilated by 98% over the summer and 95% in the fall.

* * *

Here is a piece of unquestionable good news: DUBAI SIGNS ON WITH JERUSALEM ACADEMY OF MUSIC AND DANCE.

* * *

More good news: WIGMORE HALL STAGES 36 CONCERTS IN JANUARY.

On January 8 the hall will launch its self-funded ‘Wigmore Soloists’ led by the British clarinettist Michael Collins and Dutch violinist Isabelle van Keulen. The ensemble will announce itself with Schubert’s Octet for clarinet, bassoon, horn, double bass and string quartet.

On January 9, new music group Apartment House will stage a day-long celebration of the music of Morton Feldman (1926–1987).

On January 29, British tenor David Webb will join a Schubert marathon, having just arrived from a 300mile cycle ride from Cornwall on a ‘Winter Journey’ to raise funds for mental health charities MIND and Music Minds Matter.

And much more.

* * *

Let's give that Schubert Octet a listen, shall we? It is not a brief work!

Music and Moral Agency

Richard Strauss

Arnold Schoenberg

When I was reviewing the Salzburg festival programs this week to pick out concerts I particularly wanted to attend I noticed a reluctance to attend certain kinds of programs. Now this is not necessarily an entirely new trend as I do have long-standing preferences. But I try to always be aware of my aesthetic decision process to see if it is trying to tell me something. There is quite a lot of Richard Strauss in the orchestra concerts this year, plus a couple of Mahler symphonies and some Brahms and Wagner. I tend these days to want to avoid all these composers. I want to see if I can explain why and also ask some questions about music and moral agency.

I think it is undeniable that there was a fundamental shift in the aesthetic and moral foundations of German music between, say, 1700 and 1900. This whole period we term the "common practice" era as if it were all of a piece, somehow. But that is not true, even in purely theoretical terms.

Let me try and head off some criticism in advance: I am not particularly interested in the biographies of any of these composers, whether they were anti-semites or critics of anti-semitism, for example. Whether they were morally fine people in their private lives or not. The only thing that I am going to look at--and that is going to be very brief given the limits of a blog post--is the moral content of the music, if we can even figure out what that might be!

The undeniable fact is that the history of Germany in the 20th century is stained by two horrific acts: first, the destruction of the First World War insofar as the cause of that conflict was at least partly the responsibility of Germany (its political leadership, at least) and the second, the Holocaust, where millions upon millions of Jews and other "undesirable" persons were simply murdered, en masse.

In the past I have presented arguments for the aesthetic autonomy of music and I still believe these have validity. But it is also a fact that music is just one thread in a socio-cultural context and one that is not entirely separable from the rest.

Where I think it is crude and simplistic to make claims about how Wagner led to Nazism or how the fact that such and such a conductor was popular in Nazi Germany is a moral stain, it is also crude and simplistic, as Richard Taruskin has pointed out on a number of occasions, to claim that the love and appreciation of classical music somehow gives one a special moral luster. Nope, none of that is true.

So what is true? Well, it's subtle, I think.

If we look at the music of, for example, J. S. Bach, we find music of sublime moral strength, I think. This shows itself in multiple ways: it is music devoted to the worship of God which, while there may be a lot of historical and moral complexity to that, especially given all the religious wars Europe suffered, I think there is little if anything morally blameworthy in the music of Bach. It elevates and educates the listener. Bach was no religious zealot in the sense of being fanatical about only one mode of worship. Recall that he wrote an enormous amount of secular music as well as a Catholic Mass, something rather unusual for a Lutheran composer!

Bach's music is impressive, not only for its aesthetic power, but also for its fundamental humility. It does not seek to elevate the individual, nor the German race, over any other.*

Over time, though, I think we see a shift, incrementally, from Bach's aesthetic stance, which was largely followed by composers like Joseph Haydn who, while still writing music to worship the divine, also did a little gilding of the aristocratic lily. Mozart continued this process with music that was humble and reverent, but also could be cynical and playful.

Recognize that I am leaping around in music history here simply because a full argument would run to tens of thousands of words and take me a great deal of time! With Beethoven we reach a kind of crux: his music is morally and aesthetically powerful (just look at the late A minor quartet for an example of genuine moral gratitude) while also extending, just a bit, into political territory. We need not take Beethoven's political ideals and opinions too seriously, but he certainly had them. With Schubert we take a great stride into the psychology of the individual and hence into the Romantic stance and attitudes. This establishes a trend toward greatly heightened intensity of musical expression at the service of a greatly heightened individuality that later shaded into a heightened collective identity.

And so we end up with the music of Brahms, who tried to re-establish the fundamental values of German music and that of Richard Strauss (the glorification of the individual in pieces like Ein Heldenleben), Richard Wagner (the supreme expression of individual passion and racial collectivity), and Gustav Mahler who was the culmination of these trends.

What does all this have to do with the fatal sickening of German culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? Nothing? Something? Well, not nothing, certainly. I don't see how you can listen to the progression of late 19th century German music and not hear the arrogance, the complacency, not to mention the distant sound of artillery and perhaps, just a hint of the smoke from the chimneys of Auschwitz.

Is this unfair? Is it entirely unfair? Well, maybe, because looked at from one angle, these composers were just writing music. But there is little real humility in the music and there is certainly a cultural arrogance that is hard to deny.

Music itself has no moral agency, or not much direct moral agency. You might argue that La Marseillaise led to soldiers marching into battle with renewed energy, but I doubt you can argue that Tristan led to the death camps. So if the music itself has no real moral agency, does the composer? Well that is the question. Unfortunately, it lead us into the knotty issues of intentionality, which are very hard to sort out.

Perhaps it is not a bad idea to fall back on the notion of art as being a mirror of its society. If that is the case, then the mirror held up to German society in late 19th century music is certainly one of hubris and arrogance. What is interesting is that this mirror quickly turned into a darker reflection with pieces by people like Arnold Schoenberg. If you listen to Pierrot Lunaire, premiered in 1912, you can certainly see that the culture is going in a fearful direction indeed. But hardly anyone was listening...

Artists perform a valuable function in society, but only if they are working freely, not in the service of some popular ideology. Mind you, if you know how to read the signs, that in itself is an indicator.

I will be hoping to attend a performance of Pierrot Lunaire this coming summer, but I likely will not attend the performance of Ein Heldenleben.

So, readers, did I make some valid points, or am I completely off-base?

UPDATE: Regarding Bach, there are passages, especially in the St. John Passion, that are undeniably anti-semitic, blaming the Jews for killing Jesus. While reprehensible, I think that this is a general moral failing of the Christianity of the time, not of Bach in particular. Still...

Salzburg 2021, part 3

As I optimistically believe that I am going to get to Salzburg for the festival next summer, I have been doing a lot of planning since the program became available online: 

https://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/en/tickets/programme?season=136

Most of the really important concerts are clustered in the first three weeks of August which means that some really interesting programs like the one with the Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms and the one combining Steve Reich and Olivier Messiaen, both in the third week of July, look to be out of contention unless you can plan a visit of four or five weeks. In my case this just isn't possible so it looks as if I will need to schedule my stay for the first three weeks of August. But after going through all the programs I find that I have only selected nine concerts falling in those three weeks. So now I need to go back and pick several more as I was envisioning attending fifteen concerts over a three-week span. I left out most of the orchestra concerts and things like the Mozart Matinees so let's have a look at them:

Teodor Currentzis with his orchestra and choir are doing an entire program of Rameau on Aug. 14 so that looks pretty interesting. Currentzis is one of the most innovative conductors on the scene these days. On Aug 27 the Chicago Symphony under Riccardo Muti will be doing the Firebird Suite which might be worth attending. On the 13th, 15th and 16th of August Muti will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in a performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Aug 14 and 15 will see a Mozart Matinee of two symphonies and two violin concertos with Isabelle Faust and the Mozarteum Orchestra. So there is certainly good music to hear.

Of course, after I pick out all the concerts I want tickets for, I have to apply for them to the Festival and hope to be "alloted" all the ones I have chosen.

Here is a little sample of Currentzis conducting Rameau:

Salzburg 2021, part 2

Skipping over the drama section and the Young Singers Project, the next category is Special Concerts which I can't access as I don't have the password. Wonder what that is about? The next section is a series of twelve themed concerts: Ouverture spirituelle · Pax from the 18th to the 26th of July. I haven't decided what weeks I want to attend so part of this exercise is simply seeing when the unmissable concerts will be.

Ok, this series is pretty varied and contains, among other things, performances of the Britten War Requiem, some L'homme Arme settings mixed up with George Crumb, an interesting pairing of Steve Reich Different Trains and Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time, various other interesting combinations from Medieval to Contemporary, but the one that caught my eye was this program conducted by Philipe Herreweghe:

GABRIEL FAURÉ

Requiem for soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra op. 48

(original 1893 version)

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Begräbnisgesang for chorus and woodwind op. 13

IGOR STRAVINSKY

Symphonie de Psaumes

for chorus and orchestra

You almost never get to hear the Stravinsky in concert and it is one of my favorite pieces.

* * *

Composers that are receiving a lot of attention this year include the Italians Luigi Nono and GIACINTO SCELSI, both highly regarded in some circles. Steve Reich is also getting some performances, but a particular focus is on Morton Feldman with the opera performance plus a series of three chamber concerts titled "Still life — Time with Feldman." There will be seven chamber works altogether ending with a performance of Rothko Chapel. All these concerts are by extremely fine performers and the tickets are very cheap. So I will plan to attend at least one of the chamber concerts in addition to the opera.

* * *

One of the great things about the Salzburg Festival is that they manage to deliver a hearty dose of the most central staples of the repertoire as well as those works way out on the fringe. Another mini-series of concerts is devoted to Bach and titled: "Himmelwärts — Time with BACH." "Himmelwärts" just means "heavenwards" which is where your attention is usually drawn when listening to Bach. The series includes the solo violin sonatas and partitas played by Thomas Zehetmair. Another program is a selection of various works from solo lute music to cantatas. András Schiff will give a keyboard recital. The Freiburger Barockorchester will play all the Brandenburg Concertos. All the Cello Suites will be given in a performance choreographed by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. And finally Daniil Trifonov will give a recital that will include the Art of Fugue. Oh, and most of these tickets are also very reasonable.

* * *

Right about now is when I start twitching and moaning because, really, how many of these concerts can you miss? Even the ones of standard Bach repertoire are offered with a creative flair that is hard to resist. I was hoping to fit everything really good into two weeks, but that may not be possible. I may need three weeks. I guess I just have to look for a really reasonable AirBnB which I did find last year.

I have a lot more to review as there are recital series, lieder series, guest orchestra series and on and on.

Let's have a little Bach, shall we? This is Sviatoslav Richter playing the Bach Prelude and Fugue in E flat from the Well-Tempered Clavier Bk 1 in a 1970 performance.

Salzburg 2021

 I'm in rather a good mood today after a few weeks of feeling pretty bad from COVID. But Thursday my doctor gave me a clean bill of health so I am getting back to my usual activities with a spring in my step, a twinkle in my eye and just a bit of a lilt in my inégales!

Here is a quote from a new collection of such: "Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation" —W. H. Auden. I would add to that, since books are often dull, "thank God for music as an alternative to both books and conversation."

The program for the Salzburg 2021 summer festival is out, so let's have a look.

It bears a lot of similarities to the unfulfilled 2020 festival which is not surprising. There are eight opera productions including two from Mozart (Don Giovanni and Così Fan Tutte). I don't know if these are new productions or co-productions. All the rest, I suspect, will be new productions originally created for last summer. They include Richard Strauss, Elektra, an oratorio, IL TRIONFO DEL TEMPO E DEL DISINGANNO by Handel, Tosca by Puccini, La Damnation de Faust by Berlioz and two modernist operas, Neither by Morton Feldman with text by Samuel Beckett and INTOLLERANZA 1960 by Luigi Nono.

Operas are the most expensive tickets at Salzburg so I will obviously have to pick and choose. But one thing I came away from with from the last festival is that opera is a huge strength of the festival, so see all you can! Except for the Feldman and the Berlioz, there are multiple performances of all the operas and tickets run from a very modest €15 to €80 for Feldman to €25 to €330 for Berlioz. The top tickets for the big operas will run you €445.

I am mostly familiar with the well-known Mozart operas and in fact have a  lovely box of all his operas from the 2006 Salzburg Festival on excellent DVDs so I strike them from my list. I have never seen a Strauss opera live, so I will request a ticket to Elektra. Same for Berlioz, whom I rather like as a composer. I simply have to see the Feldman as it will likely be my only chance in this life and I am growing more and more conscious of Feldman as an important composer. So I am intensely curious to see what he was up to with this. I will also request a ticket to the Nono as  he is interesting as a composer and 1960 was an odd moment in the history of opera. That leaves Handel who has always been rather dispensable in my book. So, four operas! And all of them interesting. Apart from Vienna, where else on earth could you see four different operas as interesting as this and in this quality of production over a couple of weeks?

Obviously going over the whole program is going to take several posts, but I want to just mention one concert you might miss, but that commentator Marc has already noticed. On July 28 as part of a brief three-concert series titled Church Concerts an extremely interesting program of works by a very odd assortment of composers is offered:

GIACINTO SCELSI

Okanagon for harp, double bass and tam-tam

HEINRICH IGNAZ FRANZ BIBER

Battalia à 10 for strings and basso continuo

GEORGE CRUMB

Black Angels – Thirteen Images from the Dark Land

for electric string quartet

(selected movements)

ANTONIO LOTTI

Crucifixus à 10

JOHN DOWLAND

‘Lachrimae antiquae novae’ from Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares

GALINA USTWOLSKAJA

Composition No. 2 ‘Dies irae’

for eight double basses, woodblock and piano

GREGORIANISCHER HYMNUS

Dies irae

This astonishing program is the concept of conductor and violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and is the kind of thing you can find at the Salzburg Festival and few other places on earth. The other two concerts are of music by Bruckner, Schubert and Mozart, performed by spectacularly gifted artists, of course.

Friday Miscellanea

Bob Dylan Takes the Boeing: Way back in the early days of blogging when it was hoped that some bloggers at least would become rich, the phrase arose "he took the Boeing" meaning that some very lucky blogger was bought out by some internet behemoth to the extent that he now had his own private Boeing. Ah, those hazy days of yore! Well, it worked out for Bob Dylan at least. This week comes the story Bob Dylan Sells Entire Songwriting Catalog to Universal Music.

The 79-year-old legendary pioneer of modern rock music, and the only songwriter to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, has sold his entire publishing catalog—more than 600 copyrights spanning 60 years—to Universal Music Publishing Group, according to the company.

While terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, the catalog is likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars—rivaled in value and influence only by the Beatles.

I'm not sure what I think of this exactly. I have a profound respect for Bob Dylan, formed over decades of enjoying his music--not least for its non-commercial aesthetic. I love that he wrote a twelve minute epic song "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," that never had any hope of commercial success. I've always been puzzled at the commercial success of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," surely one of his worst songs. "Desolation Row" is a transcendent marvel of a song and "All Along the Watchtower" is pretty good. Over the years his catalog is amazingly various and inspired. And now it is "worth" a few hundred million dollars. I'm just not sure what the words "worth" or "value" mean in relationship to music any more?

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This doesn't surprise me: Music education in UK schools devastated by pandemic, survey finds

Extracurricular musical activities have been discontinued in nearly three-quarters (72%) of UK primaries and two-thirds (66%) of secondaries. Schools in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been hit harder than those in England.

In addition, more than half (53%) of primaries and almost two-thirds (63%) of secondaries that normally hold a festive concert at the end of the first term of the academic year will not do so this year.

“We cannot sing, and the children are hugely disappointed when they ask to sing and we tell them no,” one primary teacher told the ISM. Another said: “Due to staggered breaks/lunch and the need to constantly wash hands, the amount of time spent on music has been reduced.”

A secondary teacher said: “Honestly, it’s impossible to state how devastating this will be in the long run for music as a subject. There is no provision at all for instrumental lessons, ensemble projects, bigger inclusive performances or even classroom ensemble work. This will, of course, harm students emotionally and academically.”

* * *

Over at Slipped Disc, Ivor Bolton relates how he has been able to keep the Teatro Real in Madrid open and giving opera performances.

The Spanish National Government and above all the Government of Madrid have supported us in this. Our safety concept for Teatro Real, including twice weekly testing of all performers, temperature testing of performers and audience and well-controlled entry/exit corridors for the public has cost over one million euros so far, and thankfully some of this cost has been met by the Government. We have just finished 10 performances (and a TV recorded DVD to follow, of Christof Loy’s brilliant new production of Dvorak’s masterwork ’Rusalka’. Seven weeks of intensive rehearsals and two weeks of performances have had their dramas! All 80 people involved in the actual production (soloists, directorial team, conductor, assistants and musical team, dressers, make-up artists, stage-management and technical staff) were tested for CoVid twice weekly.

* * *

SALZBURG FESTIVAL ISSUES 70,000 INVITATIONS

Good news in challenging times: Our new programme is currently being printed. 70,000 copies should be delivered to you, our faithful customers all over the world before the holidays and the New Year.

And starting on 10 December, you will find the 2021 programme online at www.salzburgfestival.at.

As promised, this coming summer we will present important productions in the opera, drama and concert departments which were postponed from the summer of 2020, extending the centenary celebrations of the Salzburg Festival into the autumn of 2021…

* * *

Christopher Russell is about to perform the scarcely-heard fifth symphony by the intriguing Leningrad hermit, Galina Ustvolskaya

Ustvolskaya wrote five symphonies ranging from about eight to 25 minutes. They can all be heard in about 75 minutes. All five have some sort of spoken or sung text with Nos. 2-5 based on religious themes. Ustvolskaya’s music often explored Christianity and she talked about its importance in her life although, by her own admission, she pretty much never set foot inside of a church.

She once said “There is no link whatsoever between my music and that of any other composer whatsoever, living or dead”. At first, I thought this was a fairly arrogant thing to say but the more I explored her music, the more I came to realize that this was an accurate statement. Her unique instrumental combinations, strange harmonies, and repeated blocks of sound make for a unique listening experience. It quickly drew me in.

* * *

Musicians often have to struggle to find a good place to practice, away from distracting noises and other music. But organists have special problems in that they need an actual, designated building to put their instrument in--often called a "church." Traditionally the problem has been solved by getting a job as the church organist, but this performer has found a different solution: World-renowned organist buys a Nova Scotia church, pumps out Bach in his pyjamas.

"In my childhood, it was quite difficult to go practice in some churches in Europe because we always have to [get] dressed up to go to the church, ask for the key from the priest or the minister, or we have to argue with some old Catholic nuns who were responsible for the church. They always said, 'Oh you play the organ so loud, we can't live here.'

"So now I'm alone and I can play as loud as I like.... Sometimes I play in pyjamas, of course. But there isn't any rule that we have to play only in tuxedos. So, fortunately, I can be dressed like that."

* * *

 How could we not give a listen to the Symphony No. 5 by Galina Ustvolskaya:

Friday Miscellanea

 This week I got laid low by the COVID! It rather snuck up on me and took me by surprise. It started with a loss of appetite followed by an inability to sleep. After five or six days of this I was in rough shape. There weren't many other symptoms. No sniffles and apart from a dry throat, no other symptoms. Except for just feeling like crap. I went to my doctor and after reviewing all the symptoms she said, sure looks like COVID and put me on several pills. As of today, my sleeping is pretty much back to normal and I actually ate most of a meal yesterday--the first one in a week. So looks like I'm on the mend.

* * *

I mentioned the Berlin Philharmonic performance of John Cage's 4'33 the other day, but one critic has found ways to wax eloquent about it: Found Eloquence: 4’33” Of A Thing In Overabundance

Petrenko defined each of the three movements in 4’33” with a particular affect. In the first movement, he seemed to be conducting a conventional piece that wasn’t there. In the second movement, his hands were positioned near his face, as if asking for quiet or like a priest pronouncing a benediction. In the third movement, his hands stretched toward the orchestra, fingers splayed in one hand, with a searching facial expression.

He was near tears with sorrow and grief. “What is this? What is happening?” he seemed to ask. “I don’t understand!” The veins on his forehead stood out. His arms slowly moved across the orchestra. In the background, musicians could be seen communing with him intently or meditating with eyes closed. Then his arms came down in apparent resignation. The end.

* * *

The New York Times has a lengthy piece on John Luther Adams "Become" trilogy: Musical Travel Companions for a Year of Going Nowhere.

Their underlying logic follows nature. In the memoir, Mr. Adams relates his fascination with fractals — complexly involuted forms that we find buried in the shape of things like trees, coastlines and lightning bolts. Flying from Fairbanks to Anchorage one day, he looked down at Denali and Mount Foraker and devised what would become the compositional structure for several pieces, including “Become Ocean.” He sketched four undulating lines on top of each other, the first with seven waves, the next five, then three, then a single large wave. In practice, this concept resulted in sonic worlds of engulfing, constantly shifting movement.

* * *

Here is Become Desert from the trilogy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VN9TBfWAEo

And finally some psaltery music from Provence: