tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post4036751947160210375..comments2024-03-29T07:38:17.008-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: The Case of Conlon NancarrowBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-70772648186951347412015-06-29T18:48:49.992-05:002015-06-29T18:48:49.992-05:00I saw 'player piano' in that NYRB title an...I saw 'player piano' in that NYRB title and promptly dismissed the essay; thanks for recalling my attention to what seems to be after all an article well worth reading.Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-1465666674836462092015-06-29T08:36:15.894-05:002015-06-29T08:36:15.894-05:00Thanks so much, John, and welcome to the Music Sal...Thanks so much, John, and welcome to the Music Salon. Yes, that is an interesting piece of pretty good music criticism. Music is like wine, you often get the best sense of it when you can compare different samples. At a wine tasting, you get a much better perspective on the differences between wines by tasting them side by side. Listening to Bryce Dessner alongside Steve Reich seems to have had a similar result.<br /><br />I think the metaphors were well chosen in the piece by Charlie McCann. I haven't heard the Dessner, but it sounds a bit like it might resemble some recent music by John Luther Adams in its depiction of a seascape. Steve Reich replaces harmonic and melodic tensions and directions with rhythmic ones, but he never forgets that music is supposed to go somewhere. It is a time art, a dramatic art, not a static one. If you are doing a musical landscape, you have to travel through it, like Debussy in La Mer, not just sit there throbbing idly.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-28263980060623614512015-06-29T06:54:53.270-05:002015-06-29T06:54:53.270-05:00Quite often you write about the need for high qual...Quite often you write about the need for high quality music criticism that enhances music appreciation.Recently i came across this good piece:it uses a basic math concept of arithmetic/geometric progression to critique music.Even without any knowledge of music theory,i was able to get the gist of the critic's contrast of Reich & Dessner.<br /><br />http://moreintelligentlife.com/blog/charlie-mccann/bryce-dessners-minimalism-less-less<br /><br />JohnAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com