Finland, music's superpower: The Rising Star of Conducting Arrives in New York. As a Canadian, once again I am astonished at how many great musicians Finland produces, at a fraction of the population of Canada.
The hype, that is, around the 26-year-old Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä. He’s the fastest-rising maestro of his generation, a darling of fellow musicians and orchestra administrators alike. It seems that every time I meet with someone in the industry lately, there comes a moment in the conversation when I’m asked, “Have you heard Klaus Mäkelä?”
Outside New York, it’s been hard not to. He has collected podium appointments so quickly, an ensemble as prestigious as the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam was willing to create a title, artistic partner, to keep him in reserve until he officially becomes its chief conductor in 2027. That’s when his contracts will be up at the Orchestre de Paris and the Oslo Philharmonic; already, there are whispers about where he could go next.
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From The New Criterion, a tribute to the Orlando Consort: A farewell to voices
Anchored by Robert Macdonald’s bass and propelled upward by Matthew Venner’s lofty countertenor, the Consort had no issue filling the church’s massive nave with sound. From behind their unadorned music stands and without pomp, the small chorus cast barreling waves of voice into every corner of the space with quintet pieces such as De profundis clamavi (Desprez) and maintained the same vigor in more restrained pieces, including Brumel’s (1460–1513) Mater patris et filia, arranged for a trio.
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Has Spotify really wrapped up the mystery of musical taste? Well, I strongly suspect no, but let's have a look:
But for anthropologists, taste is less of a romance than a science. “People often think about taste as being really individual,” Seaver laughs apologetically. “But in the social sciences we say: ‘Ah, that’s not really true.’ Your tastes are part of a broader social patterning that extends beyond you.” He suggests that our typical understanding of taste is shaped by the illusion of choice, akin to going to the record shop: “Among a set of available selections, what record are you going to pick?” Seaver asks me to carry out a thought experiment. “Imagine, what would it mean to have taste in music before there was audio recording?”
It’s flattering to think of taste as a personal choice because it encourages us to believe in our own individuality. Music technologies have long capitalised on this, all while leveraging the emotional connection between a listener and a song.
Nope. In my book, taste is a cultivated collection of aesthetic judgements.
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A Seattle Business Blasts Classical Music To Harass Homeless Encampment Aha! It's not to their taste!
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Melodies unheard, a review of a new book on Music of Ancient Greece.
However distant the practice of Greek music may be from our experience, the ideal persists. The continued presence of Greek words in musical terminology testifies to ancient music’s cultural authority. (The Greek kithara or concert lyre is the source, via Spanish, for our word guitar, though the two instruments bear little resemblance.) Ambition to revive the music of Greek drama motivated the Italian Renaissance invention of opera and inspired Wagner’s romantic syntheses of myth and spectacle. Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy—the full title is The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music—identified in music the generative force behind the supposed Hellenic Dionysian spirit. Above all, Greek theories about music’s nature and effects—from Plato, Aristotle, and the Pythagoreans, among others—continue to shape our attitudes toward music, even if the sounds that provoked such reflections have long since faded to silence.
The whole review is well worth reading.
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As an alumnus of McGill University in Montreal, Québec, Canada, I like to keep tabs on the state of affairs in the School of Music. Here is an ex-roommate of mine, Hank Knox, now head of early music performance, conducting the McGill Baroque Orchestra and opera studio in a performance of Handel's opera Rodelinda.
And here is Klaus Mäkelä conducting the Concertgebouw at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg in two symphonies by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky: the #6 of each. I particularly love the Shostakovich.
A final delight: the Orlando Consort with De profundis clamavi by Josquin:
The Handel operas are among my very favorites, but this one I had never heard. The McGill rendition is very nice! Certainly as good as the many Yale Opera productions I've experienced that are always very fine. The modern costumery and minimalist abstract sets are unobtrusive and let the very authentic instrumentation and vocal style come through in full glory! Luckily for me I'm rained out of work today and brought my Chromebook to the warehouse, which doesn't often host baroque opera (though it has a few times).
ReplyDeleteThis McGill production proves premature the recent announcements of the death of classical music.
Fear of that death has occupied some of my thoughts since reading your recent comment with the mediocre string rendering of Neil Young's Heart of Gold, from another school of music. If only the conservatories could play Rodelinda's part against the outrages of popular music playing that of the crass usurper Grimoaldo!
So far, it seems some schools have resisted, as attested by the authentic opera productions and symphonies and chamber music. No doubt there will be increasing pressure, both from within and without, to batter down the walls of historic preservation around the academic music repertoire. The writings of Phillip Ewell best articulate the case for opening the gates, though over time it seems to me music schools might differentiate themselves by specialization, where the historic European classical repertoire would continue in it's enclaves, with other genres in theirs. I fear the student radicals (I was one myself some decades ago) might short-sightedly hip-hop-ize the Yale School of Music and other bastions of greatness, out of over-developed politics and under-developed aesthetics. But find some comfort in thinking that over time the best music will endure through the noise of the perpetual present.
Except for some traditional folk songs, which have always been an organic living tradition outside the hothouse of academic institutions, most music seems unconcerned with historical awareness. The European classical tradition might be a fluke of the last 2 centuries, coming out of a culture of musical literacy that, around the time of Mendelssohn's revival of Bach, found some room --in a still-largely creative vortex of new music-- for deliberate and loving conservation of past greatness. Certainly pop musicians cover and allude to songs of previous generations, even crossing genres in the last few decades, but I think there is an additional aspect of classical music in the longer attention spans and contemplative mindset often required for appreciating the music. To my ears, the modern drum-kit (lately replaced with robot synthesized tappings), keeping time in rock and pop music, is a pretty reliable sign that the music is unlikely to have much development and spaciousness that require longer attention spans. The computerization of modern life, with the noxious social media shredding of attention span, make it so that cultivating long attention spans and the contemplative mind now require a deliberate rejection of popular culture, broadly defined to include the technologies of communication and distraction by which that culture is transmitted. The consequences for classical music I predict to be a continued ebb from popularity into small ghettos of almost monastic detachment.
ReplyDeleteJust taking up your last point, yes, I have thought for a while that classical music will have to survive an epoch of more or less barbarism but may survive in a few enclaves here and there. Mostly in Europe.
ReplyDeletein keeping with the "misc" part, I figured I'd post something composed by Atanas Ourkouzounov. Regular readers of my blog know he's one of my favorite contemporary guitarist composers.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0c7xGl6C9g
Speaking of blasting homeless camps with classical music, a very American movie idea comes to me; here's the elevator pitch (you've scooted into an elevator with a movie mogul, and you breathlessly tell him your idea):
ReplyDeleteGrocery store blast homeless camp with loud classical music. It inspires a middle-aged musician (an ex high school band teacher and pretty good pianist). He eases up on the dope and begins to inspire his fellow homeless dudes and gals with expert music lessons. They find (or steal) a variety of cast-off musical instruments. Under the direction of their new mentor, they get good. They become a famous Homeless Orchestra of the Air. They play all over the city at public venues and the donor coffers fill ... the frustrated dope pushers come around now offering their former clients good deals. The whole orchestra goes back to dope and reverts to homeless tents and shambles. When the grocer plays loud classical music the homeless folk are happy and grateful, the encampment grows. The frustrated grocery store manager starts playing Heavy Metal rock and roll. An ex-metal guitarist appears at the encampment ...
Heh, heh, heh! That's a great plot. Sort of a combination of Mr. Holland's Opus and Groundhog Day?
ReplyDelete