Three cheers for Ted Gioia for splashing cold water on this whole "re-branding" idiocy. I've expressed a lot of skepticism myself in the past, but he really does a good job of showing just what is wrong with the idea: Can We Stop Talking About "Rebranding" Classical Music?
Here’s the bottom line: Classical music faces many problems—but constant talk of rebranding is itself one of the problems.
The real need is to revitalize the repertoire; celebrate our traditions but also create fun and exciting new ones; make the performance situations less stuffy; reach into the community (and especially the schools); transform the entire experience of concertizing into something more thrilling and engaging; above all, inspire and change lives.
And the only way to do this is by focusing on the music.
As a reviewer who devotes hours each day to listening to recently released recordings, I know how much fantastic new classical music is out there right now—and it’s genuinely mind-expanding and enjoyable too, something that couldn’t always be claimed for the entrenched academic composition trends of the not-so-distant past. Yet I’m also painfully aware that almost nobody knows about this music, and the very institutions that should be showcasing it are caught up in other, lesser priorities.
I think he has it exactly right. Focus on the music. That's why we are here.
The "three Bs" of 20th century music, it could be argued, are Alban Berg, Bela Bartók and Pierre Boulez (leaving out a couple of Italians). Bartók is certainly one of the most important composers of the first half of the century (dying in 1945) who created a very characteristic musical style, fusing Western European forms with content derived from Eastern European folk music.
Bartók was a virtuoso pianist and, like Prokofiev, wrote concertos for his own use to provide additional income. He premiered the Piano Concerto No. 1 in Frankfurt in 1927 and followed it a few years later with the very difficult Concerto No. 2, composed in 1930/31 and premiered by the composer, also in Frankfurt, in 1933. The Third Concerto was composed towards the end of Bartók's life, in 1945, as a present for his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, a pianist. It was premiered in Philadelphia in 1946 with György Sándor.
The three concertos are a significant and unique contribution to the piano repertoire. I first purchased an LP of the first and third with Daniel Barenboim in the early 70s. Currently I have two performances on CD, Pierre Boulez conducting the Chicago Symphony in the first with Krystian Zimerman, the Berlin Philharmonic in the second with Leif Ove Andsnes and the London Symphony in the third with Héléne Grimaud. The other set is conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen with Yefim Bronfman and the LA Philharmonic. I find both recordings very fine.
In recent years Yuja Wang has done some fine performances of the first two that are available on YouTube. I may have put the first up previously. The Swedish Radio Symphony is conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen:
For the second, the Berlin Philharmonic is conducted by Simon Rattle:
The second is just terrifyingly virtuosic! For the third concerto we have Martha Argerich with the Toho Gakuen Orchestra conducted by Yuri Bashmet.
If I get a chance I might do some individual posts on how these concertos are put together. But before that I have a post on Bartók's String Quartet No. 4 that I am working on.
Here is something to wake your ears up: Hilary Hahn in a stunning performance of the Ginastera Violin Concerto just posted a few days ago. With the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra.
This inclusive approach builds on the ethos of the organization, demonstrating a vested interest in dismantling the “elite” narrative that risked making the culturally curious feel unwelcome. The alternative experience of SoundBox, for example, sells out in just a few seconds, appealing to both long-time members and young newcomers with its informal, intimate, and industrial environment where musicians easily mingle with the audience.
Somehow I suspect that the new music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen will manage to turn this to his advantage.
Paradoxically, one’s response to a recording of a live concert can on rare occasions have the exact opposite effect to a mediocre recollection of the concert itself. The late Marc Johnson, esteemed cellist of the Vermeer Quartet, told me of an experience he had listening to a recording of a live concert on the radio in his car. He had just crossed over from New Hampshire into Maine and tuned in a classical music station. A Beethoven string quartet had just begun but Marc was too late to hear who was performing. As he was driving, he was quite struck by the beauty of the playing—so much so, that as he seemed to be getting out of range of the station, he pulled over to the side of the road to listen to the remainder of the piece and learn who was performing it. “I was astonished,” he told me later. “It was us—the Vermeer Quartet. I don’t remember that concert being especially remarkable but it sure sounded great.”
I have had the experience of hearing myself in a recording without at first realizing it was me--the experience is eerie!
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I was going to put up an article in the Washington Post about the delights of discovering classical music on vinyl, but was defeated by the paywall:
You may have better luck. It reminds me that it was very much through vinyl, old, scratched vinyl, that I discovered classical music. Where I lived, in small town Canada, there was no classical music concert series and I don't remember listening to CBC FM so perhaps that wasn't available either. What I did have was a pile of loaned vinyl in 33 and 75 rpm format and an old cabinet mono sound system. Through this lo-fi haze and crackle I listened to Beethoven V, Schubert Unfinished, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Debussy and others. They very misty vagueness of the sound lent a mystic aura to the music. Well, except for the fact that the occasional bad scratch caused the needle to skip a few bars every now and then. I'm still surprised to hear the complete opening phrase of the Unfinished Symphony in its unsullied form!
The Museum of London has announced that the splintered pieces of Simonon’s Fender Precision bass will go on permanent display from 23 July.
The guitar was last played on stage at the Palladium in New York on 20 September 1979. Frustrated at the stiffness of the audience, Simonon raised his guitar like a giant axe, turned his back to singer Joe Strummer, and brought it crashing down.
It would probably have been forgotten had not photographer Pennie Smith been standing less than six feet away with her 35mm Pentax camera.
“It wasn’t a choice to take the shot,” Smith told the Guardian in 2019. “My finger just went off.”
The resulting photograph was chosen by Strummer to be the cover of the Clash’s 1979 album London Calling, one of the most influential albums of all time. It was later named as the best rock’n’roll photograph of all time by Q magazine.
Some other guitars they might consider: one of Pete Townshend's several guitars smashed at the end of performances (so they wouldn't have to do an encore?) or maybe Jimi Hendrix' set on fire Fender Stratocaster.
When W.W. Norton decided to cease distributing Blake Bailey’s biography of Philip Roth after several women accused Bailey of rape and other outrages, I called up my local bookstore and reserved a copy. When Amazon stopped selling When Harry Became Sally, which argues from a conservative point of view that it is not possible to change your sex, I went to Alibris.com and bought a used one. I would have bought the Dr. Seuss books withdrawn from distribution by their publisher, too, but I was too late: the few copies for sale online are going for hundreds of dollars. That these books had become “controversial” made me more curious about them than I otherwise would have been. I’m a grown-up, I thought to myself; I can make up my own mind about them.
The left’s new enthusiasm for getting bad books taken off the shelves is a mistake. It’s in everyone’s interest, but especially the left’s, to have as broad a discourse as possible.
When you ban a book or shut down a speaker, what you’re really saying is that you need to protect people from ideas you disagree with. You don’t trust people to contextualize, to historicize, to weigh evidence, or even just, like me, satisfy a curiosity, without falling down the rabbit hole of error. And if they do fall down, you don’t trust yourself to haul them out. They will stay there forever, nibbling reactionary carrots. You can argue forever that there is no such thing as “cancel culture,” but people know when their intelligence is being disrespected.
Worth reading the whole thing.
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Let's get right on with the envois. First, of course, Schubert Unfinished. The piece was written in 1822 but was not premiered until 1865! This is Trevor Pinnock conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe:
Next Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Orchestre de Paris in Debussy's La Mer:
One of the coolest bands of the 60s were, according to many, the Velvet Underground and The Guardian gives us The Velvet Underground’s greatest songs – ranked! Plus an interesting commentary. The number one song is All Tomorrow's Parties from 1967:
For the study, researchers used samples of wood taken during restoration work, including instruments by Stradivari, Nicolò Amati and Guarneri ‘del Gesù’. ‘Modern makers usually copy the shapes of Stradivari and Guarneri soundboards but not their thickness,’ the report states. ‘Many Stradivari and Guarneri soundboards appear surprisingly thin and light by modern standards. The average modern soundboard, made of unaltered, air-dried spruce retains approximately 3.0mm centre thickness to avoid cracking risks over time, or even up to 3.5mm in German schools. By contrast, Stradivari’s centre thickness range is 2.0–2.8mm, and Guarneri’s is 2.2– 2.9mm.’ This suggested the wood had been subjected to some sort of treatment before carving.
In analysing the spruce of a c.1740 violin by Guarneri ‘del Gesù’, the researchers discovered large traces of aluminium (1300 ppm), while Amati and Stradivari samples were below 50 ppm. Previous reports have also shown 700ppm aluminium in an Andrea Guarneri spruce. ‘This is best explained by chemical experiments involving family recipes, instead of buying pre-treated wood from lumber suppliers or random contaminations from later centuries.’
The research also found that Stradivari used salt seasoning (NaCl) but Guarneri used aluminum crosslinking (alum). For alkaline treatment, Stradivari used potash (K2CO3/KOH) while Guarneri used lime (CaO). ‘Alkalinity may fragment hemicellulose and promote cellulose rearrangement, an artificial aging technique also advocated by ancient Chinese zither makers.’ Nicolo Amati had a simple chemical recipe: Borax and sulphates of iron, copper, or zinc as biocidal preservatives.
Mr. Mears said opera is an art form that breaks every social-distancing rule, relying on “crammed pits,” large and dense onstage crowds, moments of intimacy between performers, singing (which can spread viral particles) and a sellout audience. “All of these things really work against us,” he said.
“If you were someone who hated opera and you wanted to devise a disease that hit opera particularly hard, then you’d probably come up with something rather like Covid,” he added.
The global coronavirus outbreak has had a drastic effect on the performing arts, and opera, which is expensive, has suffered hugely. Many of Europe’s major houses have received government help — in addition to annual taxpayer-funded grants — to avoid insolvency.
Tomlinson and Bullock bring to Shakespeare’s play passion, intellect and skilled vocal resources about which they speak aphoristically. “The voice,” says Tomlinson, “is like a stringed instrument, not a brass instrument.”
Bullock counters with: “Singing is just speaking with a bigger vocal range.” I also sense that for them and others this King Lear is a starting, rather than a terminal, point. There is already talk of the production having an extended life in Vienna, Paris and Frankfurt – and Bullock tells me that she yearns to play Mrs Alving in Ibsen’s Ghosts. At the very least I suspect this pathfinding production will puncture popular prejudices and confirm that you can’t be a great opera singer without also being a first-rate actor.
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We talked about a new recording of Julius Eastman's music a while back, now Alex Ross has an article at The New Yorker: Julius Eastman’s Florid Minimalism.
“Femenine,” the companion to a now lost piece titled “Masculine,” can be roughly described as a minimalist score. Like Terry Riley’s 1964 classic, “In C,” “Femenine” is bound together by an unrelenting ostinato. In place of Riley’s endlessly chiming keyboard C’s, Eastman gives us a propulsive vibraphone motif, called the Prime, consisting of twelve rapid-fire E-flats followed by a syncopated alternation of E-flat and F. Other instruments join in, sometimes dwelling on the two basic notes and sometimes branching into scalar or arpeggiated patterns. Beyond that, much is left to the discretion of the performers. Eastman calls one passage “Mao Melodies”; no one is quite sure what to make of that.
The crucial guide to the realization of “Femenine” is a tape of a 1974 performance by members of the S.E.M. Ensemble. Eastman, at the piano, knocks off double-octave runs with Lisztian flair. A mechanized sleigh-bell device provides the backdrop of bells. The label Frozen Reeds released that recording in 2016, and, almost overnight, new-music ensembles around the world took the work into their repertories. There are rival renditions by Apartment House, on the label Another Timbre, and by Ensemble 0 and aum Grand Ensemble, on Sub Rosa. Wild Up’s version grew out of an exhilarating 2018 performance by the echoi ensemble, at the Monday Evening Concerts series in Los Angeles, which can be seen on YouTube.
...the very notion of taste contains within itself two ideas in constant tension. First, taste is always personal: a judgment, but one’s own judgment. The idea derives from our physical sense of taste. It takes no great powers of observation to notice that different people prefer different foods. I like cilantro, you do not. As the Latin tag has it, de gustibus non est disputandum—there is no disputing about tastes.
And yet, however much we have a right to our own likes and dislikes, such judgments are often measured against a standard. For instance, the man who refuses to eat spinach or asparagus is unlikely to be considered a discerning judge of fine food. These two principles—the autonomy of the individual taste and the existence of some broader principle of excellence—are perpetually at odds. Each of us navigates between them, sometimes vindicating our own preferences, other times yielding to (and perhaps learning from) the taste of others.
The whole argument is well worth reading.
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Time for our envoi. First, a fascinating performance of the Sixth Cello Suite by Bach on a 5-string violoncello de spalla:
Next a fine and sober performance of the Chaconne in D minor by Bach on guitar by John Feeley:
Finally, this is Les Arts Florissants with Haydn's Symphony No. 80:
Here is something interesting for you: Polish composer and pianist Hania Rani:
Motoric, modal and with a groove: what's not to like?
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We don't have a lot of multi-talented people like Fred Astaire these days. He was a pretty fair piano-player, a good singer and, of course, a superb dancer. Notice how this is mostly just a couple of long shots, meaning they couldn't splice different takes together but had to get it right the first time:
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Here is an orchestral piece from 1918 by Lili Boulanger, who died very young at age 24.
I haven't looking into the details, but apparently you can stream concerts from the Leipzig BachFest. Looks interesting and appealing.
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Here is a very interesting news item. Up to this point there has not been a formal lobbying group of German concert agents, something I find surprising. GERMAN CONCERT AGENTS FORM POLITICAL LOBBY GROUP. Or maybe music is so well subsidized in Germany that they never felt the need?
The mission:
– Clarification and standardisation of the status of guest artists under labour and social security law.
– Improvement of model contracts and industry-wide acceptance of regulations that acknowledges the artists’ preparation in advance for projects and entitles them to compensation payments in the event of cancellations through no fault of their own.
– Recognition of artists’ media and personal rights in connection with streaming and digital distribution of opera performances and concerts.
A master class by the renowned violinist Pinchas Zukerman was supposed to be the highlight of a recent virtual symposium hosted by the Juilliard School.
Instead, Zukerman angered many of the roughly 100 students and teachers in the class on Friday when he invoked racist stereotypes about Asians, leading Juilliard to decide not to share a video of his master class afterward with participants, as it had initially intended.
At one point, Zukerman told a pair of students of Asian descent that their playing was too perfect and that they needed to add soy sauce, according to two participants in the class. At another point, in trying to encourage the students to play more lyrically, he said he understood that people in Korea and Japan do not sing, participants said.
What is both sad and weird about this is how could Zukerman have possibly gotten to this point in this life without recognizing that these kinds of remarks are biased, and, not to mention, false? Does he live that sheltered a life, flying from concert hall to concert hall, oblivious to everything else?
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It wasn't very long ago that it was possible to make the joke that soon we will have period instrument performances of Stravinsky. No longer! The historically informed movement has reached the early 20th century: The Conductor Transforming Period Performance--Mahler, Stravinsky, Debussy and more: François-Xavier Roth and his ensemble, Les Siècles, are pushing historically informed practice into the 20th century.
Roth and Les Siècles have done Berlioz, too, not least a “Symphonie Fantastique” that matches Charles Munch’s for unhinged intensity.
But it is highly unusual to hear period performances, like theirs, of later music, using instruments and approaches fitting for the late 19th or early 20th century. The orchestral works of Ravel? An early version of Mahler’s First? Stravinsky’s trilogy for the Ballets Russes, including “The Rite of Spring,” reissued recently? Debussy’s “Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un Faune,” the symphonic poem that Pierre Boulez once described as breathing life into modernity?
Pretty thin pickings this week--maybe I should not have done a mid-week miscellanea? So let's have extra helpings of musical envois. First up, some Caccini. This is his big hit Amarilli mia bella with Jevtovic Rosquist, soprano and David Tayler, archlute.
When I was young I had an album of Pinchas Zukerman playing a lot of the famous virtuoso violin pieces, which included this piece by Wieniawski:
And finally, a cello concerto by Bach's son C. P. E. Bach:
