Stravinsky on period instruments? It had to happen sooner or later: Stravinsky: Violin Concerto review – period instruments bring clarity and gutsy depth.
In an interview included with the sleeve notes, Faust says that it was performing Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale on original instruments that encouraged her to go on to explore the violin concerto in the same way, using the range of tone colour that the gut strings and early 20th-century wind instruments opens up. The gains are obvious in the first few minutes of the concerto, not only in the clarity and gutsy depth that are combined with the technical brilliance of Faust’s playing, but also in the kaleidoscope of colours that the orchestra creates around her – whether it’s the chattering flutes or the chuntering bassoons. It’s a real ear-opener, bringing the concerto into a sharper focus than I’ve ever encountered before.
Can Boulez and Stockhausen be far behind?
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The blog On an Overgrown Path discusses the BBC cuts in some depth: BBC classical cuts - beware of the knee jerk reaction:
The first crucial factor is the seismic cultural shift that has occurred over the last twenty years. The BBC's performing ensembles were created when the arts agenda was set by a top down process. The administrators set an aspirational agenda which the audience stepped up to. Today new technology in the form of the internet has demolished that top down aspirational agenda. Now the online empowered audience sets a populist agenda for the arts which the administrators - the BBC - have to step down to. They have to step down because the priority, for the classical music industry and everyone else, is now audience size. The hard truth is that today the BBC is in the business of giving their audience what they want, and, sadly, they don't want much classical music.
Whether we like it or not, cultural tastes - which means audience tastes - have changed dramatically in recent years. And this means the appetite for classical music has declined as cultural tastes have shifted. The result is that the supply of classical music now exceeds demand. This reduction in demand in today's commercially-driven BBC means reducing - aka cutting - budgets. The problem is compounded by the advent of free and cheap classical music via streaming services, a development which has devalued the perceived value of classical music, but which the classical industry has enthusiastically endorsed.
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The question came up in the comments the other day, what composers lived and worked in East Germany before the reunification? Here is the answer: List of classical composers in the German Democratic Republic. The only ones on the list that I recognize were associated with Bertolt Brecht.
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Over at the New Yorker Alex Ross does one of his deep dives into new opera productions: Medieval Romances by Kate Soper and Richard Wagner
No one has ever been able to explain exactly why Richard Wagner had such a shuddering impact on nineteenth- and twentieth-century culture, to the point where he became the subject of a somewhat unhinged international cult. Perhaps the most plausible reason has to do with the cascading power triggered by his command of music and words alike. The value of his literary output remains a matter of debate; nonetheless, his dramatic texts, which include the librettos of all thirteen of his operas, have a style indisputably their own, combining extravagant rhetoric with fail-safe narrative structures. Many composers after Wagner wrote their own librettos; few could match his furious double focus. Stephen Sondheim is the most conspicuous modern example, though he almost certainly would have hated the comparison.
The great thing about reading anything by Alex Ross is that, whether you agree with him or not, he has really done his homework.
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The singer, songwriter and ex-radio host known for her powerful jazz vocals and her philanthropy received news of two formal accolades almost simultaneously: a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for lifetime artistic achievement and also one of France’s highest honours, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
“I must be old, eh?” Johnson cracked from her Toronto home near the beginning of a wide-ranging Zoom interview.
And while she fully embraced the French knighthood, which she’ll receive on International Women’s Day Wednesday in a ceremony in Toronto — ironically eight days before departing on a minitour of France and Luxembourg — the Governor General’s honour caused her a great deal of consternation.
“It took me almost a month to call them back,” Johnson revealed. “I gotta say I was depressed. It saddened me, initially, deeply, that here I am in this stage of my career and I still can’t really pay my bills.
I know whereof she speaks! One of the reasons I left Canada was my feeling that it really does not respect its artists in any concrete way.
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I did a post on historic tuning standards years ago: Are regional differences in orchestral tuning really necessary?
It’s 1987. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is on tour in Germany and about to start a three-hour rehearsal. Before beginning the piano concerto, the soloist plays the A to the principal oboe, who in turn gives it to the orchestra. The woodwind section emits a collective groan: they’re wondering how they will cope with the much higher pitch of 444Hz – back in London, the orchestra is used to a lower pitch of 440Hz. Some of the older members make comments about how the pitch is much higher ‘on the continent’. Luckily the string sections, especially the violins, seem to take the so-called sharpness in their stride. Fortunately, half an hour later, everyone has accustomed themselves to the new pitch.
A few months later the orchestra is in a freezing church. It’s the height of CD mania, and everyone is recording another Symphonie fantastique. Unfortunately, the heating has broken down. The oboe’s A emerges witheringly flat, and 30 violins are forced to screw their pegs the wrong way, as they tune to what must be surely no more than 437Hz.
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I try not to have too many gloomy items, but we need to read this one: The death of a music shop
The closure of Banks is part of a larger problem, of course. The high street itself is in peril, with even national chains such as Paperchase failing to weather the financial storm. Independent businesses of all sorts are now struggling, as Covid losses, the cost-of-living crisis and the rise and rise of internet shopping conspire against them. All of this creates a bleak, vicious circle of decline, which is apparent even in historic tourist centres where you would expect to find charming one-off shops and restaurants on every corner. Bath still appears to be thriving, but Oxford, where I live now, is far less commercially vibrant. Numerous independent businesses have closed, the result of a toxic combination of high rents, the opening of an uninspiring, chain-driven shopping mall, and punitive council measures to limit cars and parking that send shoppers to Reading or Milton Keynes instead.
I think this is one of those sad inevitabilities that we have to live with. I used to love spending time in bookstores, especially music bookstores. On my first visit to London in 1974 I made a beeline for Foyles on Charing Cross Road. They have an entire floor of books on art and music. I spent six hours there looking at every guitar score they had (and a few other things). As I look over at my bookshelf I see lots of Dover scores of Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Chopin and others. But these days, if I want to refer to a particular score I go online to IMSLP/Petrucci. I buy regular books from Amazon in either Kindle or hard copy versions. I haven't set foot in a bookstore in years and years. If I had the chance I would delight in spending a few hours in a second-hand bookshop though...
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Let's start with that Stravinsky Violin Concerto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9L9VDxZQ2M
Next the Prelude to Lohengrin:
Here is the London Symphony accompanying Deep Purple (many orchestras do these pop gigs these days):
Finally, here is East German composer Hans Eisler's last work, Ernste Gesänge:
I recognised not one of the East German names, but I'll try to give them a smaple later.
ReplyDeleteRe BBC singers, reports I've seen suggest their budget was not much more than £1 million. Not exactly big necessary savings. Some presenters on the BBC are paid more than or equal to that. The author makes the point that advertising is everything now, and yes classical music is pretty useless at advertising itself in this country. But you can't do effective advertising, at this level, without heaps of money. If talented pop groups didn't get the kinds of backers and investors they do, would there be much more demand for them than classical groups?
Oh I spend so much of my spare time in bookshops -- the proper kind, with no health and safety regulations, piles of books that haven't been sorted in decades, peculiar owners who often seem as if they'd rather not have customers at all... There are still some holdouts in England, who irrespective of financial loss, cultural indifference, decrepitude of the shop and themselves, keep on going. But they are dying off alas. The most recent death I read about, a year or so back, was an eccentric elderly French immigrant who had a heart attack in his shop in Sussex, which was such a disordered and impossibly overstuffed place that the fire service couldn't actually get his body out the door (they had to use an upstairs window). I once visited his shop with my father and he kept us hostage for ages telling the story of a recent book he had acquired that used some sort of early wooden printing press, and various other antiquarian tales. He didn't seem interested in actually selling us anything.
I envy you your proximity to the old-fashioned bookshops you mention! There used to be a couple in Montreal--home to five universities--that I loved to visit. But where I am now, in a small city in Mexico, our only bookstore, a tiny one, went out of business over a decade ago. I have heard of a large bookstore in Mexico City that I should visit the next time I am there. But it has been a couple of decades since I have set foot in a real bookstore. I have bought a few second-hand books from Amazon, most recently the Oxford Book of English Verse, the early 20th century edition in a printing from the late 1940s and in beautiful condition.
ReplyDeleteI have a bookstore anecdote: I once joined a book club just because they offered the compact edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (in two volumes, very small print, on India paper with a magnifying glass) which I delighted in for years. (I ultimately lent it to someone who passed away and I never got it back!) Later on, in Montreal, I visited one of those eccentric second-hand bookshops with the owner behind the counter. Displayed prominently was the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (I believe in three volumes?). So I asked him, if I could name three words that were in the Oxford English Dictionary but not in the Shorter Oxford, if he would sell it to me for half-price? He gave me a very long measuring look and said, "no." The only word in that category I can recall at the moment is "imperscrutable."
@Steven - great story on you bookshop experience.
ReplyDeleteBryan - of topic, but would you care to comment on the Matamoros attack in terms of the safety level for American visitors to Mexico?
Patrick, re safety in Mexico, I think I would echo something I have read recently. There are some very dangerous areas in Mexico, such as the city of Celaya, which is only about 45 minutes away from where I live. But where I am, San Miguel de Allende, and places like Mexico City, Queretaro and most tourist areas, are quite safe. Probably safer than many places in the US such as Baltimore, Detroit or the south side of Chicago. Areas adjacent to the US border are probably to be avoided.
ReplyDeleteHa, good story. Yes we are still blessed with quite a few bookshops in easy travelling distance, though ever fewer. I still manage to commit to my policy of buying 90+% of my books in actual bookshops, not online. The most delightful thing about this is that so many of books I end up buying I never knew I wanted. That almost nevers happens searching online.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what you mean Steven. One girlfriend I used to have could not pass by a shoe store without going in and for me it was bookstores. There was a lovely one in Victoria BC called Munroe's, located in an old bank building. Only new books, but a wonderful place to visit. And yes, I always came away with unexpected purchases. There were a couple of huge second-hand bookstores in Montreal, the kind with little discernible organization--those were a special treat!
ReplyDeleteAt first, I found shopping on Amazon to be unfulfilling, but I got used to it. The upside is that if you know what you want, they are almost certain to have it. The last physical bookstore I visited was a Barnes and Noble in Virginia Beach. Awful place--all about merchandise and marketing and virtually no interesting books. Lots of crap, though.
Well I certainly don't relate to your girlfriend -- I have one pair of shoes that I stubbornly use for every occasion. I visited a Barnes and Noble in America once and it was as you describe.
ReplyDeleteI've been wanting to visit the UK and if I do manage that, I am certainly going to seek out the old-fashioned kind of bookshops. I'll probably ask for some recommendations!
ReplyDeleteHappily. If you end up in London there are still various good ones there, for now.
ReplyDeleteThe last time I was in England I gave two papers at a conference in Huddersfield so this time I would definitely want to be in London. Bookshops! Concerts! Better coffee than the last time I was there!!
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