Friday Miscellanea

Audience comment at the San Francisco Symphony

...music as an art in itself began at this time [around 1900] to occupy a very important position in relation to the other arts. Because of its 'absolute' nature, its remoteness from imitation, its almost complete absorption in the very physical quality of its medium, as well as because of its resources of suggestion, music had come to replace poetry as the paragon art.

--Clement  Greenberg, Art in Theory 1900 - 2000, p. 565.

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In line with our comments last week on the corruption of consciousness in art, I offer this headline: Alicia Keys Will Now Read You Daily Affirmations In Your Home.

Yes, you read that right. The renowned singer's holistic beauty and skin care brand, Keys Soulcare, has recently partnered with Amazon Alexa to make your manifesting goals even easier. The new custom Keys Soulcare Alexa theme is an exclusive offer for new and existing Echo customers that infuses a soulful twist to your everyday Alexa interactions.

“With our new Alexa experience, we’re bringing the philosophy of Keys Soulcare and infusing it into people’s daily lives, helping them to create empowering beauty rituals that nurture their whole selves,” says Alicia Keys. “There is so much power in a voice — I am filled with gratitude to connect with Alexa users in this special way.”

With Alicia Keys at the helm, this new endeavor invites the brand’s community to engage with Keys Soulcare’s core philosophy of nurturing the complete self — internally and externally, from skin and soul — by welcoming Keys (or, her voice at least) into their homes and daily lives.

Is this as bad as those numerous cryptocurrency scams? Or other commercial lies? Not in dollar terms, certainly. And no-one offering aesthetic scams has been put in jail (though there have been some hefty fines). But it is most certainly bad.

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The project to make really sure that we aren't neglecting women composers continues: What Happened When an Orchestra Said Goodbye to All-Male Concerts.

I went to nine performances during the season, between November and May, and heard 11 pieces by female composers. All the works were new to me, imbuing each concert with a sense of discovery unusual for an orchestra’s subscription series.

Many of those compositions — especially the ones written before the 20th century — are unlikely to find their way into the standard repertoire, which Brüggen acknowledges. But that isn’t her goal. “What we’re doing is a journey of discovery,” she said. “The selection process that happened with men throughout the centuries didn’t happen with women. It’s our social responsibility to make that happen now.”

And in so doing one places social responsibility above aesthetic responsibility, without actually saying so. But at the same time, the series seems to have turned up a number of interesting, neglected works by women composers so praise for that. Let's let a commentator on the article have the final word:

 I am not very interested in long dead supposedly missed out women composers. If there is a gem or two out there (just as with dead men), then by all means bring them on. But most non-performed western classical music is in the dustbin of history for a reason. 

However, much as I love the standard classical canon, I am also very interested in new composers of whatever gender or color or whatever. I don't want to see a bias against modern women composers, but not much interested in seeing a bias for them either.

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While a cynical approach is not always correct, that's the way to bet: Culture, Digested: The PhD in Creativity

Unlike a traditional PhD program, where a small number of candidates are selected to contribute to a field’s base of knowledge with original research and scholarship, this doctorate was sponsored by a whiskey distillery and sought to teach students “to think more creatively” through “intensive immersion in creative thinking,” according to the university’s official website. (It also deviates from many other PhD programs by charging tuition – more than $50,000 a year for at least three years – and fees, rather than being one of the fully funded programs that is the university norm.)

The sins of the American arts institutions – saddling students with tens, sometimes hundreds, of thousands of dollars in debt as they train them for jobs that don’t exist, the absence of real artistic instruction, their contribution to the vast divide that exists between the credentialed and the uncredentialed in income inequality and quality of life – have been well documented.

Two things to keep in mind. 1) no-one can teach you how to be creative and if they pretend they can, run in the opposite direction and 2) actually being creative is almost a guarantee that your life earnings will be paltry because real creativity is very hard to monetize. If you want to be rich, take someone else's idea and monetize it.

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We seem to be on the cusp of a shift in political alignments in Europe and North America. But we don't talk about politics here so I will just dig out a tiny musical story from San Francisco: SAN FRAN SYMPHONY THREATENS CONCERTGOER

An audience member who held up a rude sign in Finnish during an Esa-Pekka Salonen concert ten days ago has been threatened with disciplinary acction by the orchestra management.

Laura Leibowitz brandished the sign below. Loosely translated from the Finnish it means ‘F*ck the board’.

Impractical and unpleasant as this may be, Ms Leibowitz was contacted by senior director of operations Andrew Dubowski and warned about her ‘disruptive and offensive’ action.

‘Displaying of any signage inside Davies Symphony Hall is not permitted,’ the senior flak informed her, adding: ‘Should this conduct occur again, you will be subject to further disciplinary action, up to and including removal from Davies Symphony Hall and/or suspension of privileges to enter and attend activities of the San Francisco Symphony.’

This amounts to a new orchestra management strategy: don’t like the feedback? change the audience.

Doncha just love the and/or?

There's a PS:

UPDATE: The composer John Adams tweets: The SF Symphony is one of THE great orchestras. Alas, their board’s grim austerity plan & willingness to lose Esa-Pekka Salonen risks ruining both morale of the players and overall artistic quality. This in one of the wealthiest demographics in the world. What gives?

Yes, there is a point at which the average person is just going to say "screw you people!"

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What would you play for a classical set at Glastonbury? I’ll take your brain to another dimension … my classical DJ set at Glastonbury

Every great DJ set needs to go out on a high, and as I’m not great, nor even actually a DJ, I was relying on a small bespectacled Russian to do that for me: Igor Stravinsky. My last track was the finale from his ballet The Firebird. It’s a masterclass in musical extremes, starting with a hopeful lone horn piercing the sonic landscape, orchestral layers gradually build like the best trance records do, and then the ultimate beat drop. Stravinsky puts a pause in which pulses with expectancy, and then the final bars come racing out, the luminous bird aloft. Stravinsky delivered, and there was a big response from the audience.

Read the whole thing.

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More from San Francisco: Big changes afoot at 3 great San Francisco classical music institutions

The symphony is indeed in a state of turmoil that feels existential. Four years ago, Salonen became music director with the mandate to foster innovation, following what he had accomplished in his 17 years at the helm of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Unfortunately, the city and its orchestra were hard hit by the pandemic. Rather than give Salonen the support to realize his bold vision, the San Francisco Symphony, which sits on a $345-million endowment (the second largest of any American orchestra), slashed, slashed and slashed some more. Management insists the institution will otherwise run out of cash. Dire financial projections have become self-fulfilling prophecy.

Salonen has refused to renew his contract (which runs for one more season) after the board scaled back a European tour, new commissions, innovative programming and staged productions with Peter Sellars, its much-heralded digital media, its “Concerts for Kids” series and the far-reaching creative partners from various walks of music and technology Salonen appointed. A black-box series, SoundBox, a hit with young audiences, has been downgraded as well. Frank Gehry’s proposals for inexpensive experimental new halls made by refashioning warehouses on Treasure Island should be a no-brainer, but for this board they are a nonstarter. A musicians strike looks likely in the fall.

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I've been watching more of Rick Beato's clips recently because he has something to say. This is one from yesterday:

Yep, old man, shouting at clouds! He does have a sense of humor. Watch the clip. Yes, people are less and less interested in things like art and music and more interested in ... social media, which just means that the main psychological affliction of our day is narcissism and self-absorption. Ok. I'm comfortable with that even though it is certainly not my path. I'm really interested in art and music. But I don't quite see how to solve the problem of most people being uninterested in art and music, so I won't worry about it too much. More power to Rick, though.

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 Let's start with some John Adams played by the San Francisco Symphony during happier days:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MDdECxPsro

And the Finale to The Firebird by Stravinsky:

Finally Sinfonia concertante for organ and orchestra by Esa-Pekka Salonen with the NDR Elbphilharmonie:

Today's Listening: While My Guitar Gently Weeps

I ran across this video courtesy of Fil from Wings of Pegasus. Commenting on the amount of sheer talent onstage at this 1987 concert he remarks that now (i.e. 2019) it would not be possible to put something similar onstage because the level of individual talent here is really not matched by current artists. I suspect he may be correct. He mentions things like songwriting ability, instrumental competence and so on. Here is his clip:

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

And here is the original concert for the Prince's Trust. Onstage are George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Jools Holland, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Mark King, Jeff Lynne and others.

 You know, that is one terrific song, isn't it? And no autotune, no pitch-correction, no quantization...

Today's Listening: Shosty 4

The 4th Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich is mostly known for being the one that he withdrew from rehearsal on the occasion of his being denounced in Pravda in 1936. Instead he wrote the more-accessible Symphony No. 5 which was intended to get him back in Stalin's favor--it seems to have worked.

But the Symphony No. 4 is a very interesting work in itself and it has one of the most original (and apocalyptic) introductions ever. This clip with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony just popped up on YouTube,  so have a listen. It's not showing in Blogger search yet, so just follow the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzmcnMrRHR4

Later on in the first movement there is a section that sounds like Tchaikovsky on acid...yeah, now you have to listen!

My Era of Otium

I just learned the most fascinating word: otium. Here is the Wikipedia definition:

Otium is a Latin abstract term which has a variety of meanings, including leisure time for "self-realization activities"^[1] such as eating, playing, relaxing, contemplation, and academic endeavors. It sometimes relates to a time in a person's retirement after previous service to the public or private sector, as opposed to "active public life" (the negative negotium meaning "busy-ness"). Otium can be a temporary or sporadic time of leisure. It can have intellectual, virtuous, or immoral implications.

The concept originally expressed the idea of withdrawing from one's daily business or affairs to engage in activities that were considered to be artistically valuable or enlightening (i.e., speaking, writing, philosophy), and had particular meaning to businessmen, diplomats, philosophers, and poets.

This blog is a project of otium in that it is an activity of my leisure time. Hopefully it has virtuous rather than immoral implications! My goal is simply to notice things, in other words, to speak the truth. As it is a leisure activity and earns me no money and as I have no music-related earnings, I am able to ignore any and all commercial pressures. If I were to be pontificating in areas like politics or economics I would potentially fear censorship from some mega-corporation. But as Spotify or Universal Music doesn't have that kind of power, I think I can live free of fear. One hopes, at least.

Please be careful to distinguish otium from the similarly-sourced word otiose, meaning idle or indolent!

Some appropriate listening. This is Artur Schnabel, recorded in 1937, playing the Beethoven Bagatelles, op. 126. For many years Schnabel, the leading Beethoven interpreter of his day, refused to do recordings because, the story goes, he was afraid that someday, someone would listen to his Beethoven while eating a ham sandwich.

The Procrustean Bed

In Greek mythology, Procrustes was a bandit preying on travelers between Athens and Eleusis. He had an iron bed and compelled people to lie on it. No-one ever quite fit so for those who were too tall he amputated the extra and those who were too short he stretched to fit. Theseus, on his way to Athens, solved the problem by serving Procrustes with his own medicine. As commentators like Fil from Wings of Pegasus and Nick Beato have been pointing out, commercial pop music has become something of a Procrustean bed. Let's listen to Fil:

I think this is enough to get the idea. From different angles Fil is pointing out that much of what we see and hear in these kinds of videos is processed or, to be a little more blunt, fake. Rick Beato was making a similar point in the video I just put up yesterday. Here it is:

Now let me connect this to R. G. Collingwood, Professor of Philosophy at Oxford. His essay "Good Art and Bad Art" is found on page 536 in Art in Theory. Here are some quotes:

Art is community's medicine for that worst disease of the mind, the corruption of consciousness.

...a work of art is an activity of a certain kind; the agent is trying to do something definite, and in that attempt he may succeed or he may fail. It is moreover, a conscious activity; the agent is not only trying to do something definite, he also knows what it is that he is trying to do; though knowing here does not necessarily imply being able to describe, since to describe is to generalize, and generalizing is the function of the intellect and consciousness does not, as such, involve intellect.

A work of art, therefore, may be either a good one or a bad one. And because the agent is necessarily a conscious agent, he necessarily knows which it is. Or rather, he necessarily knows this so far as his consciousness in respect of this work of art is uncorrupted; for we have seen that there is such a thing as untruthful or corrupt consciousness.

A bad work of art is an activity in which the agent tries to express a given emotion, but fails. This is the difference between bad art and art falsely so called. In art falsely so called there is no failure to express, because there is no attempt at expression; there is only an attempt (whether successful or not) to do something else.

To give some examples: if Paul McCartney were to sing "Hey Jude" very badly, out of tune and poorly phrased, that would be an example of bad art. If his performance of "Hey Jude" were to be pitch-corrected and rhythmically quantized, that would be "art falsely so called" because it would not be the truthful expression of emotion.

A bad work of art is the unsuccessful attempt to become conscious of a given emotion: it is what Spinoza calls an inadequate idea of an affection. Now, a consciousness which thus fails to grasp its own emotions is a corrupt or untruthful consciousness.

In my view, music that is pitch-corrected, autotuned or quantized is the product of a corrupt consciousness. A lot of what J Dilla did with his beats was an attempt to insert human expression into otherwise mechanized rhythms.

A person who is capable of producing bad art cannot, so far as he is capable of producing it, recognize it for what it is ... To mistake bad art for good art would imply having in one's mind an idea of what good art is, and one has such an idea only so far as one knows what it is to have an uncorrupt consciousness; but no one can know this except a person who possesses one. An insincere mind, so far as it is insincere, has no conception of sincerity.

Art is not a luxury, and bad art not a thing we can afford to tolerate.

I recommend reading the whole thing. I'm something of an Aristotelian myself and from the first sentence of the Collingwood I got the sense that he was one as well. So when you read him, do so slowly and carefully.

I suppose that we can thank the purveyors of rhythmic quantization and pitch-correction for showing us exactly what a corrupt consciousness in music consists in these days.

Just a footnote: every good singer I have worked with has intentionally bent the pitch of certain notes in one direction or the other for the sake of emotional expression. And phrasing, of course, is nothing but the pushing of rhythm in one direction or the other for the same reason. I learned these things from my first voice teacher. 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday Miscellanea

The New York Times has a think piece on Discord at the Symphony: Losing a Star, San Francisco Weighs Its Future

It was the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s first concert in the hall since March, when he stunned the classical music world by announcing that he would step down as the orchestra’s music director amid a dispute with management over budget cuts. The evening’s program was just the sort of thing he had promised when he was hired with a mandate to rethink the concert experience: Ravel’s charming “Mother Goose” brought to life by dancers from Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, and then Schoenberg’s nightmarish “Erwartung” staged by the director Peter Sellars.

His decision to leave once his contract is up next year has upset fans — “Who he is and what he brings can’t be replicated,” Mark Malaspina, an audience member, lamented as he entered the hall — and left some concerned about the future of the 113-year-old San Francisco Symphony.

“An orchestra that was in very good shape is now in crisis,” said Peter Pastreich, a longtime arts administrator who managed the San Francisco Symphony from 1978 to 1999. “It is heartbreaking to watch.”

Salonen, a powerful creative force both as a conductor and a composer, is exactly the person that an orchestra like San Francisco needs, which is undoubtedly why they hired him. His leadership of the Los Angeles Philharmonic was an indicator of what he could achieve. But yes, his plans were costly. On the other hand, they are the kind of innovative ideas that lead to wealthy donors with deep pockets coming up with the cash. And remember, this is San Francisco, home to a remarkable number of wealthy innovators. In a review of where the management was going, Salonen said, “I have decided not to continue as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, because I do not share the same goals for the future of the institution as the Board of Governors does.”

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It's Taylor Swift's world, we just live in it: The Taylor Swift Economy Has Overtaken London. I Went to Its Epicenter.

Taylor Swift is in London. Even the least culturally clued-in person could not have failed to notice. The city is full of people in “Eras” merch, and social media is awash in concert footage from the tour dates at Wembley Stadium: Travis Kelce donning a top hat and tails to make his own onstage debut, Prince William celebrating his 42nd birthday by shaking it off in his private box. We’ve got an election going on here at the moment, so candidates are busy doing things in public to appear maximally normal. Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition, posted a photo of himself on what he described as a “Swift campaign pitstop” at the “Eras” tour on Friday. Mayor Sadiq Khan posted a version of London’s underground map with all the stops replaced by Taylor Swift song titles and captioned it “London (Taylor’s Version).” For better or worse, this has indeed felt like her town, for a weekend.

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Also in the NYT an article about an experimental Mexican musician: Mabe Fratti, a Spark in Mexico City’s Experimental Music Scene

Moving forward hasn’t exactly been a problem for Fratti, 32, who was born in Guatemala and is based in Mexico City. Since releasing her debut album, “Pies Sobre la Tierra,” in 2019, she has put out two more solo records, in addition to collaborations with her partner and producer, the Venezuelan musician Hector Tosta (known as I la Católica); the German electronic artist Gudrun Gut; and her improvisational quartet Amor Muere. In just five years, she has built a reputation as the most prominent member of Mexico City’s dynamic and rapidly evolving experimental music scene.

Driven by an influx of musicians to the metropolis and the establishment there of new institutions — sound galleries like 316 Centro in the city’s La Merced neighborhood, and labels such as Umor Rex — the Mexican capital’s avant-garde music community has flourished in recent years.

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One of the recurring pleasures of the classical music world (and the pop one as well) is the discovery or re-discovery of music of the past: ‘Dazzling, beautiful and vital’ – Mishka Rushdie Momen on Tudor keyboard masterpieces

I began to devise the programme for my new recording during lockdown. Feeling oddly distanced from the classical and Romantic repertoire I usually love, one day I came across Byrd’s wonderful A minor Fantasia. It knocked me sideways. I immediately set about inhaling all the pieces in Parthenia, the first collection of keyboard music to be printed in England – in 1612-13, a joint endeavour by Byrd, John Bull and Orlando Gibbons. It was surprisingly moving to be exploring masterpieces written in a time of even more deadly plagues and at a time when, like today, people would have been contemplating a profoundly insecure and unpredictable future.

Few musicians explore this repertoire on the modern piano, but for me it felt entirely natural and instinctive to do so

There feels to me something fundamental about this music, almost as if many of the pieces set out to investigate the genetic codes of music itself. With this in mind, I could not resist including also one such piece by the extraordinary Dutch composer Jan Sweelinck, whose work bears testimony to the exchange of musical ideas and influences across Europe.

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Alex Ross goes all medieval: Guillaume de Machaut’s Medieval Love Songs

Machaut’s lasting fame resulted from a lucky conjunction of talent and power. Early on, he belonged to the court of John of Luxembourg, the King of Bohemia; in later years, he enjoyed connections to many members of the French royal family. He was thus in a position not only to write for high-ranking patrons but also to arrange for the preservation of his manuscripts. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France possesses an enormous volume, of more than five hundred folios, containing almost all of Machaut’s output. Like many composers over the centuries, Machaut did not lack confidence. In a prologue to that tome, he portrays himself in dialogue with Nature, who tells him, “Your works will find more renown than others, / For there will be nothing in them to fault, / And thus they will be loved by all.”

Yet the ubiquitous “I” in Machaut’s writing should be treated with caution. This is one message of Elizabeth Eva Leach’s 2011 book, “Guillaume de Machaut: Secretary, Poet, Musician,” a revelatory study of the music and the poetry in tandem. No less than future singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, Machaut deploys a rotating array of ersatz selves. Although some of his scenarios have a happy vibe—“Rose, liz” shivers with gentle ecstasy—he is very often trapped in perpetual longing for a woman out of reach. What’s more, that pining is deemed essential to the creative act. Poetry and music, Leach writes, become “the ultimate surrogate for erotic desire and means of achieving a serene life.”

As always, finely written and researched, worth reading the whole thing.

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It feels like we talked about this a dozen times before, but Rick Beato does a good job of summing it up:

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Lots of envoi possibilities this week. First off, Enfrente from the new album by Mabe Fratti:

I have to say that to me, that sounds like pop music if it were interesting. Next, a ballade by Guillaume de Machaut:

Mishka Rushdie Momen playing William Byrd:

I don't know if this is indicative, but every clip of Elsa-Pekka Salonen on YouTube conducting the San Francisco Symphony is an advert! Nothing complete. So here is Daniel Patrick Stewart conducting the orchestral piece Nyx with the San Francisco Youth Orchestra.

Large Aesthetic Objects

Thinking about the aesthetic critiques of Dada and Surrealism, yes, they were justified as a reaction to the horrible calamity of the First World War (and the Second for that matter), but the solution, to turn over creativity to the unconscious and the irrational while refreshing and certainly A solution, was not a very good one. I will mention just one reason why: without the diligent use of reason and planning, only fairly small aesthetic objects are feasible. So certainly painting, drawing, small sculpture and poetry are ideal media. But architecture, large sculpture and extended musical works are not. If you want to jump in and cite minimalist music then, ok, that might be an exception or it might simply be the case that they are long works based on short structures. You might also mention some early Shostakovich absurd pieces such as The Nose opera or some ballets, but these are actually short works strung together to form suites.

What cannot be produced under the strictures of Dada and Surrealism are large works like the symphonies of Bruckner or Mahler (or Shostakovich), pieces that take years to write and orchestrate and a large, highly-trained orchestra to perform. Large works of poetry like the Four Quartets of T. S. Eliot and large novels like In Search of Lost Time by Proust or Ulysses by James Joyce, while certainly containing whimsy and disjointed episodes, considered as a whole have an intricate structure.

I think we are still hunting for ways of organizing societies that don't rely on either fascistic or communistic authoritarianism! And yes, of course, the aesthetic challenges of organizing large forms are still with us--and they are the same ones that always existed. Pop music avoids the problem by not having large forms. Or not needing them!

I await your comments while listening to Bruckner.