Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Agenda 2/1-2/6

I may as well pitch a tent at the corner of 57th and 7th, because I'll be more or less living at Carnegie Hall this week. Tonight, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, the hall is given over to the glorious Cleveland Orchestra, about which an English music presenter once legendarily asked, "Where is the Cleveland Orchestra from?" (An anecdote told in Charles Michener's in-depth profile of the orchestra, running in the New Yorker this week.) The regal Radu Lupu plays the five Beethoven piano concertos, and Franz Welser-Möst piles on some brawny twentieth-century repertory — Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony, Roy Harris' Third, Birtwistle's Night's Black Bird, Dutilleux's Second Symphony, and the Berg Three Pieces, plus Schubert's Unfinished. On Saturday afternoon, I'll see Pelléas et Mélisande at the Met. That's enough for one week, surely.

I have a handsome old score of the Beethoven concertos. It once belonged to the superb horn-player Alan Civil, who was in the Royal Philharmonic under Beecham and later in the Philharmonia and the BBC Symphony. He also played the solo on the Beatles' "For No One." His Daily Telegraph obiturary read in part: "Once on a train bound for Leeds he sat opposite a young girl who was wearing headphones from which hissed a sound unacceptable for a long journey. When asked to turn the volume down she refused, adding that it was a free country. Alan proceeded to take his horn from its case and to play Mozart loudly. The girl then left the carriage to the applause of the other occupants." The obituary also said, "It would be unrealistic to gloss over the fact that Alan Civil enjoyed a drink."

Here we go again

Kyle Gann writes about a trend surfacing among young composers — a new yen for dissonance, complexity, various forms of musical noise. I've been noticing this, too, and wondering what to make of it. Composers who came of age in the sixties and seventies rebelled against their elders by rejecting dissonant modernism in favor of minimalism, neo-romanticism, and other reaffirmations of simplicity. Now the world has turned upside down. The composers of the sixties and seventies generations have become the establishment; they are, to their own distress, figures of authority. Perhaps it's not surprising that some of the youngsters are headed in a different direction. As Kyle suggests, the raucous underside of the pop world — noise punk, hardcore metal, and so on — is pushing them along. And if middle-aged composers of a tonal persuasion tell them they're on the wrong path, they will surely keep on going.

I love extreme dissonance in improvised form, when it's produced by AMM, Sonic Youth, and any of their countless spawn. That kind of noise can have joyous, liberating effects on the tired brain. (I once played keyboard in a six-piece noise collective called Miss Teen Schnauzer. The climax of our single public performance was built around a tape loop of the opening chords of Die Frau ohne Schatten. We opened for Sebadoh, which was very cool.) But its classical equivalent, the density dance, often makes me squirm: all that raw, rebellious expression so easily turns into yet another intellectual game, simply in the act of figuring out how to write it down. These days, I get much more excited when I hear something totally fresh produced with relatively simple means — this captivating new piece by Judd Greenstein, for example.

Minimalist conviviality

"I like to hear composers compliment their contemporaries," Robert Gable says of Steve Reich's recent comment on John Adams in the Times. In an interview published in his book Writings on Music, Reich was even more gracious to his younger colleague: "The poet Ezra Pound talked about poets in terms of being 'inventors' or 'masters.' I would put John in that second category and myself in the first. Obviously, there is some mastery needed to get your inventions across in a powerful way, and some invention is needed by every master. Nevertheless, there may be some truth in that distinction." How's that for generosity? Now, if only Reich and Glass could get along. Maybe they'll hug and make up on a very special Oprah.

More on sex, drugs, and oboes

The other day I had a bit of fun at the expense of Blair Tindall's forthcoming book Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music. I received various responses, ranging from "That sounds completely silly" to "Darling, you have no idea." No doubt the truth lies somewhere in between, and, fortunately, Tindall's book promises something other than a sensationalistic tale of oboe crack whores (entertaining though that might be). The author writes me: "Mozart in the Jungle is really meant to illustrate how the Cold War-era 'culture boom' established an unrealistic blueprint for arts economics and attitudes in America. The resulting system, with which we're now stuck because of full-time orchestra contracts and an explosion in the number of performing-arts centers built in the 1960s, can cost communities more than it returns in public service. One orchestra manager told me his job revolves around providing full-time employment for musicians rather than serving the audience." This, of course, is important stuff, and I'll be very happy if Tindall casts a cold eye over the entire question of musicians, management, contracts, unions, and the like. Everyone in classical music knows that the big ensembles need to take bold measures to adapt and evolve. Yet the network of contracts that envelops them means that even the tiniest, most timid notions require protracted negotiations, usually ending in stalemate and stasis. If Tindall uses a bit of gossip to draw attention to the bigger issues, more power to her. I'm thinking of changing the title of my book to The Rest Is Noise: How Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Other Radical Extremists Brought the World to the Brink of Harmonic Armageddon, and Why the Critics at the Times Don't Want You to Know About It.

Norrington's Mendelssohn's Bach

[The grousing Roger Norrington post that originally appeared here didn't make much sense, so I've taken it off the air. I'm paying for this microphone, as the late President said.]

In other news, Marion Rosenberg has written a lovely tribute to the late great Giuseppe Verdi. A high-school blogger named the word whisperer does the same for Barber's Adagio for Strings. (Via Robert Gable.) I urge New Yorkers to give their business to either of the major events happening tonight — Reinbert de Leeuw at Juilliard or Boulez at Carnegie. I'm on a secret mission to Providence to see something that might be of infinitely lesser or infinitely greater importance than Boulez conducting the Rite of Spring, depending on how you look at it. Stay tuned.

Behind the Musik

The music world is sure to be talking about Blair Tindall's book Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music, which Grove / Atlantic will publish in July. A well-placed source at one of New York's leading broadsheet newspapers has sent me a summary of its contents, to which I've added editorial emphasis:

From her debut recital at Carnegie Hall to performing with the orchestras of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, oboist Blair Tindall has been playing classical music professionally for twenty-five years. She's also lived the secret life of musicians who survive hand to mouth, trading sex and drugs for low-paying gigs and the promise of winning a rare symphony position or a lucrative solo recording contract. In Mozart in the Jungle, Tindall describes her graduation from the North Carolina School of the Arts to the backbiting New York classical music scene, a world where Tindall and her fellow classical musicians often play drunk, high, or hopelessly hung-over, live in decrepit apartments, and perform in hazardous conditions. (In the cramped confines of a Broadway pit, the decibel level of one instrument is equal to the sound of a chain saw.) Mozart in the Jungle offers a stark contrast between the rarefied experiences of overpaid classical musician superstars and those of the working-class musicians. For lovers of classical music, Mozart in the Jungle is the first true, behind-the-scenes look at what goes on backstage and in the Broadway pit.

Oh, don't I know it. I played the oboe until age eighteen, and every day I thank my lucky stars I was rescued in the nick of time from that lurid, shocking, degrading lifestyle. (I spent two years in Holliger House, a wonderful shelter for recovering teenaged oboists.) If, as Ms. Tindall claims, classical musicians are routinely drunk, high, and horny when they play, they do much too good a job of hiding it. Let's bring some of this crunkosity out in the open. I want to see a couple of OD's and maybe some onstage vomiting at the NY Phil. Let's put a hidden camera backstage and see what Yo-Yo Ma is really doing before he saunters onstage with that cherubic grin. And let's talk about Pierre Boulez — the original party monster is in town this weekend, and it's going to be off the hook.

Twang of Death

Is there any sound quite as beautifully chilling as a low note on a harp? The instrument that stereotypically evokes the flutterings of angels has its dark side, and its bass tones can mess with your head. I thought about this during Das Lied von der Erde at Carnegie on Sunday: "Der Abschied," Mahler's antepenultimate self-requiem, begins with two harps playing two octaves below middle C, augmented by contrabassoon, two horns, tam-tam (very soft), and pizzicato cellos and basses. It's a sound from underneath the floor, something between a bell and a thump. Film/TV composer Michael Giacchino makes liberal use of deep harp notes: they're the main reason you get inexplicable chills watching Lost. Perhaps the orgy-shy Helen Radice has more to say about the history and literature of the Strum of Doom.

Update: Helen comes through with a rocking post on harp construction, Mahler, and the expressivity of the telling detail.

I kid you not

David Thomson captures the appeal of Johnny Carson: "He was a master spy, an immaculate secret, someone who knew that being on television long enough might be a very good way of burying your own soul." Read also Mr. Sun (now and forever). Kenneth Tynan's 1978 Carson profile is one of the all-time tour-de-force New Yorker articles, worth the $15,000 (!) Tynan was paid. Oddly, I once wrote a long article on late-night talk shows for the New Republic. I'm no longer sure what I was trying to say, and the last several paragraphs were actually written by Andrew Sullivan, but there is some amusing talk-show history in it. The text comes courtesy of a Freshman Composition class at Ole Miss.

Farinelli, Litherland

Trrill, the site that tells you "what the f*** we think about opera" (we're a family blog here), has a great post about the legendary castrato Farinelli. Trrill's chief editrix, Mme. Grisi Pasta, also reports that le tout Seattle has gone mad for soprano Victoria Litherland, now singing Manon in Manon Lescaut. Sound files on the singer's site are worth hearing.

Absolutely final applause post

Mozart writes about the 1778 premiere of his Paris Symphony: “Just in the middle of the first Allegro there was a Passage I was sure would please. All the listeners went into raptures over it — applauded heartily. But, as when I wrote it, I was quite aware of its Effect, I introduced it once more towards the end — and it was applauded all over again.” Mozart here describes an atmosphere similar to that of modern jazz clubs: the audience demonstrates its sophistication not by remaining silent but by acknowledging the composer's best ideas with bursts of applause. What would Mozart think of our modern concert culture? I'm guessing he'd admire the precision of the performances, and he'd appreciate the relative lack of chatter and noisemaking, but he might well be disturbed by the generally passive, frigid demeanor of audiences. An artist who imagines in the throes of his creative process a give-and-take with a responsive crowd would have a hard time adjusting to the intellectual solitude of contemporary composition. He might look around for other opportunities.

Concert-hall managements often insert little etiquette codes in their programs. As Richard Taruskin sardonically notes in his new history of music, the most familiar of these litanies takes the form of Biblical commandments on the order of "Thou shalt not...," accentuating the fake churchiness of the ritual. Some organizations, thankfully, are starting to send a different message. Here's what the Houston Symphony says in response to the question "Is it proper to applaud between movements?":

As music in the schools wanes and technology and popular culture become ever more engulfing, symphony orchestras are trying to attract the widest possible audiences to classical music to ensure we have music-lovers for the future. Therefore, today's audiences consist of young and old, novice and experienced listeners, first-time visitors to Jones Hall and subscribers who have been with us for decades. While we believe in presenting the best possible musical experience, we also want to encourage spontaneity and comfort. Applause between movements can be seen as an encouraging sign of new and enthusiastic additions to the classical music fold.

Notice that the Houston Symphony stops short of endorsing applause between movements. Instead, it gently implies that experienced listeners might want to think twice before going ballistic on the issue. Wouldn't it make more sense to be happy that new people are in the hall? Perhaps be friendly to them if they're sitting next to you, instead of scowling? Just a thought. Let the last word for now belong to reader Roberto Lizondo:

In your "More applause" post you say that you have "often been to orchestral concerts where the audience supplies a standing ovation that to my taste isn't warranted." While that is certainly so, I would like to make the case that warranted and unwarranted ovations (if not standing ones), as far as classical music concerts go, are really inspiring for musicians, and a great reward in a a lonely profession full of ups and downs. Here in Buenos Aires, the audience at our Teatro Colón may not be very discriminating, but they surely know how to clap at the end of a performance. I've seen the look of disbelief in the face of some eminent musicians playing here: the endless clapping, going on and on, calling the musician back into the stage over and over again. And when after the fourth or fifth curtain call the "rhythmic" clapping starts, boy, isn't it great to be in that place with all that people, just wanting to thank the lonely figure on the stage and show them how grateful we are that they flew all the way down to spend that couple of hours (extended, if we audience are going to get our wish, a further half hour) giving us their music, even on a night when inspiration deserted them a little bit. I've been lucky enough to attend concerts in some of the world's foremost venues, and nowhere have I felt such communion between artist and audience, caused simply, I guess, by the fact that the minority of us down here who still care about (and can afford) classical music are willing to show our thankfulness to the person on the stage without the restraints of propriety.

As for clapping between movements of a piece, it surely disturbs me, but it is an argument often used by those who, at least here, want to keep "serious" music as their exclusive terrain, inaccessible to those who are not "educated enough." A few years ago I attended a lieder recital by Bernarda Fink, and next to me there was a group of high school students, who were obviously coming to a concert of this type for their first time in their lives on some school assignment. She was singing some Schumann cycle, I believe, and after the first Lied some people in the audience, conspicuously among them my student friends, started to clap. The hissing from all over the theatre started immediately, but she, very graciously looked in our direction, put a finger to her mouth, as in one of those old hospital posters, and made a gesture indicating that the applause had to be deferred until later, while looking at the hissers not unkindly, but at the very least impatiently. The students acknowledged the gesture: they seem to absorb (or try to absorb) their first Schumann, waited to start clapping until they saw everyone else doing it, and I am sure at least one or two of the group went home thinking that perhaps this music was worth investigating a little further.