Friday Miscellanea

 AI keeps creeping into our daily lives. For example, here is an AI-generated podcast on the music of Sun Ra: https://www.readtrellis.com/bespoke/podcast?id=8bba164a-1f06-4c35-9f95-95ecab35afee The really odd thing about it is the opening and closing are backgrounded with generic synth noodling and no actual music of Sun Ra is heard. What did it cost to produce this podcast? Almost nothing I would guess so we are likely to see a lot more of this sort of thing.

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From The Guardian: ‘I threw my pop records in the bin’: George Benjamin on his defining moments – and his latest opera.

One day in April 1976, his teacher, Peter Gellhorn, took him to see Messiaen. He recalls how they arrived early and were let into the flat by Yvonne Loriod, Messiaen’s pianist wife. Eventually, “I hear a key in the door. I’d read books about him and heard his music – and I imagined someone very serious and intense, philosophical and distant and terrifying. I was probably shaking with fear. And he comes in with a sweet, lovely smile.” Benjamin played a piece he’d written, far too fast, and Messiaen gently told him to try it again, slower. And that was that: Messiaen agreed to teach him. “One of those moments of transfiguration for me.”

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I hope this is not the case: Is the party over for festivals? Norman Lebrecht writes:

There is a sense of ending in the festival industry, with all the major players in a state of nervous transition. Bayreuth, where you once had to wait years in a ballot for a ticket, now has seats to spare. Salzburg is suffering side-shocks of the Russia-Ukraine war. Lucerne is preparing for regime change. Verbier’s future is clouded in its thirtieth year. Edinburgh is in transition. The formula for producing music at high levels through the long vacation is suddenly cracked, if not broken.

Regarding Salzburg:

The most recent trend has been to attract Russian oligarchs with their favourites Anna Netrebko, Valery Gergiev and Teodor Currentzis. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and oligarchs scrambled for their yachts. Now Salzburg tries to face both ways. It still hires the contentious Currentzis and charges $500 for some tickets. Director Markus Hinterhäuser seems to be waiting for inspiration.

I don't think this is a fair appraisal. There is a lot more going on there, plus, the Currentzis concert was the best one I saw at Salzburg.

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‘Dangerous gatekeeping’: why is country music still resistant to diversity?

Country music isn’t known as a good ol’ boys’ club for nothing. Gender issues are “historic to the genre”, says Dr Jada Watson, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa. “There are women who preceded Maren like Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn who often wrote songs about more progressive ideals of what it means to be a woman.” The problem is that country music’s once broad church seems to be closing its doors to progressive voices.

As Solzhenitsyn pointed out, the only thing that can resist progressivism is tradition and country music has the strongest traditions.

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The Gramophone chamber music award this year goes to Mozart String Quintets – No 3, K515; No 4, K516 played by the Ébène Quartet with Antoine Tamestit viola.

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North Carolina radio station plans to reject broadcasts of 'inappropriate' Met operas

A listener-supported radio station in North Carolina, WCPE, is planning to withhold the broadcast of six contemporary operas this season from New York's Metropolitan Opera, because of the station management's objections to the operas' content. It is a classical music controversy that echoes larger, nationwide culture war debates.

WCPE's protest comes at a time when the Metropolitan Opera is eager to showcase its commitment to recently written operas and works from outside the traditional canon of music written by white men. Three of the operas that WCPE plans to reject in the 2023-24 season were written by Black or Mexican composers. This past April, WCPE also refused to broadcast another Met-produced opera written by a Black composer that included LGBTQ themes.

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The Italian Bells That Survived Nazis, Fires, and Even the Medieval Ages

Located in Italy’s isolated and rugged southern region of Molise, the quiet stone village lies squarely in a mountainous valley, where green hills roll into each other like waves and hay barrels freckle the land like drops of gold. It’s here, teetering at the top of a rocky outcrop, where you’ll find the two brothers working in the Pontifical Marinelli Bell Foundry, which, appropriately, is the oldest family-run business in Italy and among the oldest in the world.

The Marinellis have been handcrafting bronze bells since at least the 11th century, although archaeological findings at nearby Benedictine monasteries suggest the Marinellis’ craft could date as far back as the 9th century.

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Lots of material for envois today. First up At First Light by George Benjamin:

Next L'Ascension by Messiaen:

The Quatuor Ébène with the Quintet No. 4 in G minor, K. 516 by Mozart: