tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post9092354286142769244..comments2024-03-27T23:06:03.736-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: Friday MiscellaneaBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-49123979021707299252015-05-09T08:52:01.934-05:002015-05-09T08:52:01.934-05:00Violin Phase is one of my least-favorite pieces by...Violin Phase is one of my least-favorite pieces by Steve Reich. Have a listen to Six Pianos to get started, then perhaps the Octet and work up to Different Trains, which I think is a masterpiece!Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-35855758295632906482015-05-08T14:30:34.731-05:002015-05-08T14:30:34.731-05:00The Anne Midgette is incoherent, over there, I thi...The Anne Midgette is incoherent, over there, I think; I just read her the other day on Nico Muhly's opera Two Boys and she made perfect sense, as she must often do (I don't habitually read her reviews): so one wonders why she felt the need to profess her faith in democracy! popular culture! and shoeless feet, I suppose, too, like the flautist in that awful piece of CW's, and all that nonsense. Pft. I myself don't have any problem expecting individuals to respect the customs adopted by the 'listening community'-- it is not as if I'm trying to forcibly violate their consciences. (Happened to read the other day about some critic-y sort of fellow associated with National Review who took the mobile away from the obnoxious female user during a performance and threw it into... who knows where he threw it; it was a musical, now that I think about it: while I can understand the 'murderous rage' AM evokes I don't think taking the damn machines and throwing them away can be considered an acceptable solution, even if there's no blood shed). <br /><br />I had put off listening to any Steve Reich, in spite of your several encomia, but took the plunge with that Violin Fase. Microchanges, the YT page person is talking about. Hmm.<br /><br />Jennifer Higdon's something or other was on the radio last Sunday but I wasn't really listening; something with the flute having a major part. I've heard her before, on the radio, and so have presumed that she is <i>important</i> on the contemporary musical stage. <br /><br />That <i>Les soirees de l'orchestre</i> by Berlioz is online, and appears to be ironic and humorous; I only read the prologue and the first soiree but certainly knowing that PG is enjoying it adds to my mental portrait of the composer. Granted, it is a fictitious orchestra, but as you point out about the former, less etiquette-bound practices of opera-- sorry, perhaps AM did that; have been much distracted from writing here-- I suppose that orchestra members chatting while not actually playing isn't entirely without the bounds of possibility. <br /><br />[http://www.hberlioz.com/Writings/SOindex.htm]Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.com