Friday Miscellanea

Scholar Philip Ewell continues his campaign: US music education has a history of anti-Blackness that is finally being confronted

What is considered harmony in the U.S. is based on European notions of tonality, pitch, scale, mode, key and melody.

The three composers the books most commonly represented were Germans Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven and Austrian Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

We found that of the nearly 3,000 musical examples cited in the textbooks, only 49 were written by composers who were not white and only 68 were written by composers who were not men.

I guess you could say that aesthetics has a disparate impact.

* * *

WIGMORE HALL 2023/24 SEASON OPENS IN SEPTEMBER

Don’t miss the opening of the 2023/24 Season at Wigmore Hall this September with a spectacular week of performances to kick off a captivating season.

Acclaimed pianist Stephen Hough performs on opening night, and Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss follow shortly after in a programme of Schubert piano duets across two evenings. The extraordinary Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian is sure to delight with songs from Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, while Sir George Benjamin returns to the Hall with Ensemble Modern for a programme of 21st Century works alongside Benjamin’s own arrangement of Bach’s Canon and Fugue.

* * *

A thoughtful consideration of the collision of art and ideology: The Conquest of Art.

Art is becoming once more what it was during the classical period, and again in the 1930s and 1940s—a dangerous, or at least delicate, concern that can’t be left to just anyone. Elites can retain unrestricted access to the great works, in this new environment; the plebes, though, should stick with diversion and consumerism—comic books, sanitized paintings, and industrialized music. In a perspective on the future, proposed as part of the Venice Biennale of 2022, curator Cecilia Alemani wrote: “This selection of 213 artists includes a majority of ‘women or artists of non-conforming gender who challenge the supposedly universal figure of the white man guided by reason.’ ” The importance of a work, on this view, is no longer tied to the talent or creativity of artists but to their gender, skin color, or sexual orientation.

Should we introduce ethnic or gender quotas into art, at the risk of denaturing it? After all, if a work of art is required only to be representative of a fraction of the population, then it is no longer a creation but an election by proportional representation. Every film, book, or opera would then automatically include a fixed percentage of minorities. We thereby confuse good intentions and talent. But talent has nothing to do with justice. To recover a certain equilibrium in the creative world entails the creation of true works of art. A bad film produced by the staunchest feminist is still a bad film. 

Read the whole thing.

* * *

 In the annals of performance: A relaxed, inclusive ‘La Traviata’ at Seattle Opera

Going to the theater can seem like it comes with a long list of don’ts: Don’t be late, don’t be on your phone, don’t talk, and don’t allow anything to distract from the performance. To address these barriers, on May 21, Seattle Opera offered a “relaxed performance” of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “La Traviata.” The performance invited the audience to enjoy Verdi’s music in any way that was comfortable for them: The house lights were brought down to a dim, rather than fully dark, setting, and attendees were free to talk to each other and vocalize as they pleased without fear of being “shushed” by their neighbors. Special sections of the auditorium allowed for movement and technology use, and ushers permitted audience members to exit and re-enter the theater for breaks in designated quiet spaces.

Before concluding that this was an unalloyed success, wouldn't it be interesting to hear how the performers felt about it?

* * *

A note on the economics of music: Cradle Of Filth's Dani Filth: "Spotify are the biggest criminals in the world...we had 26 million plays last year and I got about 20 pounds"

"It's been deteriorating ever since… I think 2006 was the year that everything swapped from being comfortable for musicians — well, not necessarily comfortable; it was never comfortable.

"But [it went to] just being a lot harder with the onset of the digital age, the onset of music streaming platforms that don't pay anybody. Like Spotify are the biggest criminals in the world."

 * * *

Whew, we need some nice envois after that! Speaking of Stephen Hough and Wigmore Hall, here is a concert of Brahms from a couple of years ago with the Castalian String Quartet:

Here is the big hit from La Traviata: "Brindisi" with Pavarotti and friends.

We haven't had any Debussy for a while so here are movements from Nocturnes and Images for orchestra with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony:

Hey, at least he's not German.

Today's Listening: a late Mozart trio

 

Friday Miscellanea

 Let's start with an unusual article on the sense of hearing: The Sounds Of Invisible Worlds.

As McLuhan noted, the printing press changed human behaviors and cultural habits, and also our perceptual patterns. Oral traditions receded; visual culture became ascendant. As the written word permeated our lifeworld, the importance of the spoken word — and the use of hearing as a method for exploring and understanding the world — dwindled. 

Senses that are not cultivated tend to atrophy. Ethnographers have long commented on the seeming deafness of Western peoples — raised in a culture obsessed with vision and the written word, whose sense of hearing is less developed than peoples of other cultures. 

The painstaking work of bio-acousticians has revealed that many more species than we previously realized actually make noise. Moreover, we are realizing that many species that are vocally active are capable of conveying complex information through acoustic communication.

A good example is elephant infrasound. Elephants emit powerful, very low sound waves (well below human hearing range) that travel long distances through both forest and savannah and help herds and families coordinate behavior across vast expanses of terrain. Even more surprising are the specific signals and sounds that elephants convey for certain situations, which scientists have compiled into a dictionary with thousands of sounds. African elephants, for example, have a specific signal for honeybees. They are keen listeners too, able to distinguish between humans from tribes that hunt them and those that don’t merely by listening to their voices and discerning their dialects.

* * *

The Guardian has an excellent piece on an unusual music festival: ‘Festivals have to be slightly different and magical’: Orkney’s St Magnus festival

The St Magnus festival was co-founded by Maxwell Davies, Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown, arts campaigner Marjorie Linklater and Norman Mitchell, music teacher and cathedral organist. Ticket sales have always been split equally between visitors and residents, but the local community was and remains at its heart, and the islands’ rich past is a tangible part of the midsummer festival, which takes in classical, contemporary and traditional music, literature and dance as well as drama. 

The festival has always positioned emerging artists, says Nicolson, who also cites Dutch pianist Nikola Meeuwsen as among the names to watch. “Sometimes I feel like it’s a bit like being a football scout. Come to my world before I can’t afford you!” he laughs. Previous performers who came at the beginning of their now stellar careers have included Sean Shibe, Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy, and a teenage Nicola Benedetti.

Contemporary music is less of a presence than it was in Maxwell Davies’s day; this year’s festival features only a single premiere, from the Scottish composer Pàdruig Morrison. “Max’s music comes and goes from the programming when it’s appropriate,” says Nicolson. “I want to do things that aren’t just a token throw in; things that aren’t done very often, such as the Medium that was performed last year, a 50-minute unaccompanied monodrama for soprano. It’s an extraordinary and fascinating piece but very rarely done.”

* * *

Two good pieces in The Guardian this week: ‘Extraordinary historical jewels’: the cantatas of Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre

Born in Paris in 1665, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre was a musical prodigy, a talented singer and harpsichordist. She was presented to Louis XIV at Versailles as a teenager, and taken under the wing of his mistress Madame de Montespan. Lauded by the elite, her opera Céphale et Procris (1694) was the first ever by a woman to be performed at the Paris Opera. But most remarkably of all, even though it wasn’t a success, she continued to compose and sustained a professional career into middle age and widowhood. In the new century, she experimented with new forms such as the sonata and the cantata, becoming riskier and more distinctive in her style. She remained among the most respected of French composers until her death in 1729 and was included in guides to the best music for the remainder of the 18th century, before disappearing from view.

* * *

From the CBC: Is Taylor Swift saving the economy? I remember how shocked I was a decade or so ago, to read that a musician that I, at the time, had never heard of was a billionaire. This was Jay-Z and it was in the Wall Street Journal. Previously I had only been aware of Paul McCartney in the billionaire club and certainly he deserved it. But Jay-Z? I had never even heard the name, let alone the music. But it is more and more amazing what a large place music seems to occupy in the economy.

The online research group QuestionPro crunched the numbers and found the Eras Tour will generate billions of dollars in economic activity in the United States. 

"If the current spending pace continues through the end of the tour, the Eras Tour will have generated an estimated $5 billion [US] in economic impact, more than the gross domestic product of 50 countries," QuestionPro wrote in a news release.

Plus, over at the New York Times, Paul Krugman weighs in: Is Taylor Swift Underpaid?

Still, there are many talented artists. Why do a few earn so much? There’s a standard economic theory about that, laid out in a famous paper by the economist Sherwin Rosen, “The Economics of Superstars.” Rosen argued that modern technology meant that the potential reach of performers was much larger than it had been when live performance was the only way to entertain an audience, so that a musician (or, his example, a comedian) who was, or was perceived to be, even a bit better than his or her rivals could earn large sums by performing on mass media, selling records, and so on.

But on the surface, that’s not what’s happening with Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. They’re making huge sums not mainly from record or streaming royalties but from concerts — which is, by the way, normal. One of the lessons I learned from Alan Krueger is that musicians have always made their money mainly by touring; this was true even during the CD era, when record companies were making money hand over fist but passing very little on to the artists. It’s even more true now, in this age of streaming.

But there are live performances, and then there are live performances; ticket sales for each of Swift’s concerts are expected to be $11 million to $12 million.

* * *

Kronos Quartet spreads the word for contemporary music to a new generation of performers

The idea, according to founding first violinist and Artistic Director David Harrington, was to commission 50 quartets from a variety of composers, and make those easily accessible, free of charge, to anyone who wanted to tackle them.

The project, announced in 2015, has now been completed, creating a broad and eclectic repertoire by composers with wildly different stylistic approaches. The quartet’s annual three-day festival, scheduled for Thursday through Saturday, June 22-24, at SFJazz, will be devoted to the fruits of the project.

* * *

More on the business of music: 30 years ago, Prince changed the way artists negotiate with the music industry

“While he was still being paid very generously by Warner Brothers, the conditions of that contract, especially as it pertained to how and when and why he could release his music, that those conditions had become kind of onerous,” Piepenbring said. “He felt that he no longer had control over his songs.” 

“He kind of very famously said that ‘if you don’t own your masters, then your masters own you,’ ” said writer and tech entrepreneur Anil Dash, who’s written about Prince. “At the time when he changed his name, he took to shortly thereafter writing the word slave on his face, which is a pretty profound statement for a Black artist to make.”

* * *

Our first envoi should be something by longtime Orkney resident Peter Maxwell Davies.

Here is a cantata by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre:

Finally, a little music from the Kronos Quartet:

Bits and Pieces

I was FaceTiming with a German friend and she asked "So what's the deal with American politics?" My answer: "it's so crazy I avoid it by listening to 15th century music."

* * *

The three stages of being an expat:

1. Wow, this is a really different culture. I have to try and adapt.
2. This is a cool place to live, you should come down for a visit.
3. Nah, don't bother, it's not as nice as you think, you should stay where you are, we are getting crowded...

* * *

Reading about post-modernism I can certainly see the point of the criticism of abstract reason and the interest in collective identity and the subjectivity of truth. But what gives me pause is the realization of just how this is going to be--and has been--put to practical use by unscrupulous politicians. Perhaps we need a post-post-modernism.

* * *

* * *

Some pretty good drumming...

Franco-Flemish Record Review, part 2

The second disc in this box of thirty-four is also by the Ensemble Gilles Binchois and it contains the music that accompanied a very famous European banquet "Le Banquet du Voeu" of 1454, known in English as the "Feast of the Pheasant." Here is a contemporary painting of some of the participants.

Click to enlarge

Just a few months before, in 1453, the Ottoman Empire had finally conquered the Byzantine Empire, whose last remaining territory was the capital of Constantinople. This was the end of the Eastern Roman Empire and a major turning point in the history of Western Europe as scholars from Constantinople, Greek-speaking, brought a wealth of ancient manuscripts to the West, one of the sparks that initiated the Renaissance in Northern Italy. At the time, the great cathedral in Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia, was the largest church in Christendom and would be until the completion of the Seville Cathedral in 1520.

The Banquet of the Pheasant, given by Philip the Good of Burgundy, was to promote a crusade against the Turks. As the time of crusades was rather over, it never took place. But the banquet remains one of the famous ones in European history and there are a number of accounts of it, including lists of the music which included anonymous pieces as well as music by Guillaume Duffy, Gilles Binchois, and several others. Dufay and Binchois were the most-represented.

Honestly, the historical context is slightly more interesting than the music on this disc, but it is entertainingly diverse and well-played. We even get a cornemuse solo. The recording dates from 1991.

Disc 3 is titled "Dufay and Binchois: The Art of Courtly Love, the Court of Burgundy." The performers are The Early Music Consort of London, the first generation of specialist performers and include David Munro, James Bowman, Alan Lumsden, James Tyler, and Christopher Hogwood along with many others! It kicks off with some jolly springtime music by Dufay. Later on we get the motet Lamentation Sanctae Matris Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae, also by Dufay, lamenting the loss of the Hagia Sophia. I suspect you could write quite a clever historical novel called The Two Churches about the Hagia Sophia and the Duomo of Florence, turning points in the 15th century. Also on the disc are some lovely chansons and ballades by Binchois. For contrast there are also two anonymous basse danses.

The recording dates from 1973 and was recorded at Abbey Road.

Here is the Dufay Lamentatio from the disc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpKSnqtfd0A

Premiere of String Quartet No. 2 "Landscapes"

This is always the most difficult moment for me with a new piece. I have spent the time, often quite a long time, composing and re-composing; we have had the premiere and there is a recording, but now, I just don't know what to think of the piece. I need a lot of distance! So I offer the recording to you for your thoughts...

I may try and do a better one later on, but this is my first stab at putting together a little video of the premiere of the String Quartet No. 2 that took place in Vancouver on May 27 of this year. My deepest thanks to the Pro Nova Ensemble who put in a lot of work and did a fine job of bringing the piece to life. And, of course, to the audiences who attended the three concerts (the two others were May 21 and 25). It was a real privilege to get to hear this piece. I started composing it three years ago, but the original plans were thrown awry by the Covid epidemic. Many thanks also to Richard Volet who made the journey over from Victoria just to record this concert.

The members of the Pro Nova Ensemble are:

• Hyunsil Lucia Roh (violin)
• Ju Dee Ang (violin)
• Barbara Irschick (viola)
• Shin-Jung Nam (cello)

The piece is in three movements:

1. Mountain with Birdsong
2. Moments in the Forest
3. The Surrounding Ocean

The first movement I re-wrote a few times before it came together. It fuses together birdsong and elements from Asian and Russian music. At the end the movement simply dissolves. The second movement is in moment form and consists of a lot of tiny moments that are not co-ordinated in any way but just occur. They are framed by a chord progression. The last movement captures the dynamic and energy of the ocean and serves as a traditional kind of finale.

I think the recording captures the performance quite well. At the beginning of the second movement a loud motorcycle went by, but it seemed almost to fit in. I have only rudimentary skills with iMovie. I have just put some photos and a couple of short video clips over the recording to give you a bit of a taste of the experience from my point of view. The opening panorama is of the water reservoir in North Vancouver. There is a photo from the last rehearsal which I attended. Most of the other photos are from the second concert, in a cultural centre on the water in West Vancouver.

Please let me know your thoughts and comments on the music.

 

Retro Record Review

Dual portrait of Dufay and Binchois

Some things that I used to do fairly regularly that I do much less often is micro-reviews of pop music, little essays on music theory and "retro record reviews." The latter included things like a review of several recordings of the Bach Goldberg Variations on harpsichord, released over a few decades. I think the winner there was Trevor Pinnock, though Scott Ross came in very high. The reason for this was that I just got tired of all the fawning over the Glenn Gould recordings and thought these other folks should get some credit.

I like the idea of talking about recordings that may be decades old, but still have much to offer--probably more than current recordings which are the only ones that get reviewed these days. Though this may be changing as I suspect that we are entering a period in which no recordings get reviewed except for the occasional puff piece on the latest pop diva--which is rarely about the music.

So I'm going to review a nice box of recordings I just started listening to. I can't promise to offer anything like the depth of musicological expertise that the late Richard Taruskin brought to the table in his remarkable reviews of a variety of "early music" recordings (that actually extended up to Norrington's Beethoven). But I will do my best. Here is the recording:

First let's clear away some false assumptions: no, this is not some new and laudable record company (Warner Classics in this case) project to offer us a bargain box of "Josquin and the Franco-Flemish School"--34 CDs for $50, though that is what we get. The liner notes attribute the 2021 release to the 500th anniversary of the death of Joaquin. But the truth is that this is a heterogenous collection of recordings by various ensembles recorded over much of the history of early music in the 20th century from the early recording of Adrian Willaert by the Ensemble Vocal de Bruxelles in 1970 and the 1965 recording of Pierre de la Rue by the Capella Antiqua München to the Hilliard Ensemble's recording of the same composer in 1990 and the Ensemble Gilles Binchois recording of the named composer in 2000. Most of the recordings date from the 1980s by groups including the Hilliard Ensemble, the Early Music Consort of London and many others.

It goes without saying that the technical standards are good and many of the older recordings have been remastered so yes, you can go ahead and purchase the box in confidence. The problematic aspect, as Taruskin has observed in many places, is that the conceptual ideology of the performance practice has seen enormous development over those fifty years. But I will simply sidestep that and refer you to the relevant volume Text & Act by Taruskin.

What I will do is just offer my subjective reception on listening to the discs. Why did I purchase the box? I was just so sick of the never-ending articles on AI and music and the Taylor Swift tour that I felt the need for a real musical grounding and where better than the glorious music of the 15th and 16th centuries. The liner notes comment:

Architecture, sculpture, painting and music all benefited from Burgundian ambition and together disseminated a new vision of art throughout Europe as the continent moved into the era of humanism and the Renaissance. Henceforth, mankind would be seen as the peak of Divine Creation, and it was the duty of art to glorify both human intelligence and its application to the creative act, while also seeking to communicate with the greatest number of people--this led to the development of a new kind of polyphonic song designed for private practice and adapted to that purpose.

Particularly outstanding examples of the astonishing musical development of human intelligence are pieces like Nuper rosarum flores by Guillaume Duffy that mirrors structural aspects of the Florentine Duomo into the music and the Missa prolationum by Johannes Ockeghem that exhibits feats of meter and subdivision that I doubt have ever been surpassed.

But a lot of the discs contain secular song, a genre that has been around for millennia and is still around today--Thanks, Taylor! The first disc is devoted to chansons mostly in rondeau form by Gilles Binchois and is a fairly recent 1997 recording by the Ensemble Gilles Binchois. To a modern listener the music is preternaturally calm, arriving at a cadence every ten to twenty seconds. These often sound rather angular to our ears due to the frequent use of the Landini cadence where the interval of a sixth falls to a fifth before opening out to an octave. The ensemble uses voices with instruments----the leader, Dominique Vellard is a lutenist as well as a singer and we hear a lot of lute accompaniments. The highlight is the setting of the fine poem of Christine de Pisan (1364-1430) Dueil angoisseus as a ballade. Courtly love is the main theme of the texts though they also include celebrations of nature and the return of spring.

Ending today with the recording of Dueil angoisseus which we can find on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_snuhaYa-J4

I will take up more of the discs in future posts.