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| Italian commedia dell'arte costumes |
From reading people like R. G. Collingwood (The Idea of History) and Northrop Frye (Anatomy of Criticism) I have the sense that trends in history and the arts are often a fusion of the old and the new. Look at Neo-classicism in music, for example. So when I encounter something so radically new as the Quebec group Angine de Poitrine that I put up this week (and that everyone and their dog seems to have posted a reaction to), after noticing what is new: the costumes, the quarter-tone guitars, the intricate looping, the irregular time signatures and so on, the next thing I notice is that there are historical precedents for all this. The illustration above is meant to show that their costumes might be influenced by the comedian dell'arte costumes (just add polka dots); the use of quarter tones goes back a hundred years or so, I recall using tape loops in a 20th century performance practice class in 1976, fifty years ago; and irregular time signatures go back at least to the Rite of Spring composed in 1913. I'm also intrigued that their looping structures might have some relationship to the medieval isorhythmic motet! But what we might most deeply admire is that Angine de Poitrine have managed to make quarter-tone music addictive!
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Students cram in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw as musicians play
AMSTERDAM (AP) — From the stage of Amsterdam’s historic concert hall, violinist Hyunjin Cho and cellist Efstratia Chaloulakou look out over row after row of young faces illuminated by the glow of laptop screens.
The plush red seats of the Concertgebouw’s main auditorium are occupied by students cramming for upcoming exams and finishing dissertations as classical music fills the hall.
The students aren’t being rude by ignoring the musicians. At this event, they’re meant to be studying — and the music is intended to assist rather than distract them.
The study sessions were first organized during the COVID-19 pandemic by Entree, the youth association of the Concertgebouw, to help students improve their concentration and introduce them to the charms of classical music.
AP correspondent Karen Chammas reports a well-known classical music venue in Amsterdam has found a new way to attract a younger crowd.
They have been a hit ever since.
Seems like a great idea. My only quibble is that this encourages passive listening, which I'm not a fan of.
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What do we even need music critics for, anyway? Do they add anything of importance to the musical landscape, or are they just arrogant, carping malcontents who exist to take potshots at the great artists of the day? Wouldn’t things be better if the entire enterprise were to simply disappear?
These rhetorical questions, and the embittered perspective underlying them, have been around for a very long time — for all I know, since the modern practice of music criticism began in the early 19th century.
Sure, read the whole thing.
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I am, inescapably, a critic myself which trait came to the fore a few days ago. I had attended a charity benefit and was seated next to an attractive and intriguing woman with whom I had a brief conversation. A few days later I asked a mutual friend about her. As she was single, my friend mentioned an event that the woman was going to be the star of in a few days. So we arranged to go as a group. It was some sort of St. Patrick's Day event so I was unclear as to what was going on. It turned out that the woman, let's call her Patricia, was the singer for a blues band with violin, guitar, saxophone, electric bass and drums. Ok, could be good. I'm actually quite fond of the blues. Alas, it was not so good. The drummer was a brutal, insensitive sadist, smashing his drums with great violence, plus his snare was tuned to the wrong note, something I hadn't previously realized was possible. The violinist was a non-entity, the saxophone, guitar and bass were generic. But the singer, Patricia, was the real show. She's not actually a singer, more of a poser. She poses as a singer, and offers many poses on stage, wriggling her fingers at us, adjusting her fashionable hat and, most alluring, displaying pelvic thrusts to show her female strength. Alas again, the second song they chose to massacre was The Thrill is Gone by B. B. King, a truly great blues artist. That song has a unique nostalgic sadness, unusual in the blues. I massacred it myself when I recorded a version of it some fifty-five years ago! The excessively loud drummer really killed it, but he was aided and abetted by the singer, whom I doubt even knew all the words. This is what it should have sounded like:
I had the great privilege of hearing him perform this song in concert in Montreal in 1990 and it brought the house down. I'm afraid that in future I will be unable to even look Patricia in the eye, let alone have a conversation.
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Rather thin pickings this week, so let's move on to some envois. First up, if you haven't listened to Angine de Poitrine five times yet, you really should:
Here is the String Quartet no. 3 by Alois Haba, in quarter tones:
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