Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Providence

In 2006 I wrote an article bout the state of American music education in which I described Community MusicWorks, an extraordinary performing / teaching organization based in the West End of Providence, Rhode Island. I'm happy to hear that MusicWorks — whose permanent resident ensemble is the Providence String Quartet — has received a $300,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation. The money will be used to fund several new initiatives, including a collaboration with the Sphinx Organization in Detroit. Congratulations!

Deep River (for Penelope)

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano, and Roger Vignoles, piano; Wigmore Hall Live 0013.

Bargain of the week

In the UK and Europe, you can obtain a trim box set of almost everything Stravinsky wrote — ninety-six works on twenty-two CDs — for the low, low price of £17.99. It's a bare-bones reissue of the great Columbia/CBS Stravinsky survey of the 1950s and 60s, with the composer conducting and/or supervising. Alas, there are no texts for the vocal works. The same set was briefly available in the US, but, Sony Classical informs me, it was a limited edition. However, if American Stravinskyites have the item shipped via air mail from Amazon UK, they will spend, if current rates hold, around $32. I tested the transaction; it took eight days for the set to arrive.

Update: People seem to be capitalizing on this bargain — le tout Stravinsky today jumped to #39 #22 in Amazon UK's overall music rankings. Stravinsky also became the #1 Mover and Shaker in Music, as he should be:

Affordable concertgoing

Cheap Seats. The New Yorker, Feb. 2, 2009.

iFlâneur

The Guardian runs an approving editorial on the occasion of the belated British stage premiere of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's hyper-opulent Die tote Stadt. Jessica Duchen, author of an excellent Korngold biography, has much about the composer on her blog; Gavin Plumley, too.... Kenneth Herman reviews Christopher Taylor's Messiaen.... Eichler on Masur on Mendelssohn.... Alan Lockwood on Robert Ashley.... Sequenza21: If Alma Mahler had Twittered.... A spirited discussion of the New York Philharmonic's new logo. (Via Felix Salmon.) ... Tonic Blotter on Dudamel's return to Chicago.... Scott Timberg (ex-LA Times scribe, now blogging) and Dan Johnson (arbiter of classical sexy) on the LA Phil's 09-10 season announcement.... Steve Smith on Missy Mazzoli and Victoire.... Stjepan Hauser imitates various famous cellists. (Via ACD.)

For George Perle

 I was very sad to hear from Roger Evans that George Perle passed away yesterday, at the age of ninety-three. A composer of formidable intellect and playful spirit, a scholar whose books on Alban Berg will always dominate discussion of that composer, a kindly man with a wry sense of humor, Perle will be greatly missed. Condolences to his wife, Shirley. Allan Kozinn's obituary is online at the New York Times. Here is the Elegy in memory of Balanchine from Perle's Serenade No. 3 (1983):

Richard Goode, piano, with Gerard Schwarz conducting the Music Today Ensemble; Bridge 9214 (orig. Nonesuch).

La vida bona

"Un sarao de la chacona" ("A Chaconne Soirée"), by the early seventeenth-century Spanish composer Juan Arañés, as realized by the great Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI. Here's an Overgrown Path interview with Savall, who will appear at the reopening-night party for NYC's Alice Tully Hall on Feb. 22.

Classical interloper

This blog has the honor of being nominated in the Best Music Blog category for the 2009 Bloggies Awards. I doubt I have much of a chance against such sharp competition as Stereogum, Idolator, Said the Gramophone, and One Sweet Song, but it's worth a shot. You can vote at the Bloggies site until Feb. 2.

Inaugural music

Russell Platt, Terry Teachout, and Anne Midgette all take a dim view of Air and Simple Gifts, John Williams's musical contribution to the Obama inauguration. Indeed, it's no Quartet for the End of Time. But I liked several things about the work and its place in the ceremony. 1) The quiet, almost bittersweet ending — a welcome change from the grimly bombastic Williams film music that marred Obama's victory speech in November. 2) The gesture of homage toward Aaron Copland, whose Lincoln Portrait was pulled from an Eisenhower inaugural event in 1953 at the insistence of a Red-baiting congressman. 3) The look of delight on the face of the president — a title he officially acquired while the music was playing, at the stroke of noon. I'm not sure that any president since Jimmy Carter has exhibited such obvious interest in the neighborhood of classical music. (When I was a kid, I met President Carter at a Suzuki violin recital in which his daughter, Amy, was participating. The president offered me a brownie.) Like many people, I'm hoping that the Obama administration will support classical music and the arts, although, in this climate, not much is likely to happen, and – as I mention in The Rest Is Noise — art and politics have never mixed well on American soil. Anyone who favors a "Secretary of Culture" ought to read up on the political firestorm that consumed the WPA arts projects in the late 1930s. But symbolic gestures — recitals at the White House, attendance at concerts, and so forth — can send a strong signal. A great detail emerges from Anne's review: Abraham Lincoln regularly went to the opera and had Flotow's Martha staged on the occasion of his second inauguration. 4) I liked most of all the diverse picture of the classical world that the performers presented: an Israeli-born violinist, a Chinese-American cellist, a Venezuelan-born pianist, and an African-American clarinetist from the South Side of Chicago. "Maybe people noticed that it wasn't old white guys up there," Marc Geelhoed wrote to me.

Update: More from Mark Swed, Tony Tommasini, and Carl Wilson, who points out commentators' sad but unsurprising failure to understand the significance of Aretha Franklin singing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" (see my post below). As John Gibbons notes, Queen Latifah did acknowledge Marian Anderson's 1939 concert during the pre-inaugural event on Sunday. I watched on C-SPAN, knowing that the network and cable pundits would start talking during the music.

MLK Day: Let freedom ring

Lincoln, Copland, Obama

A brief video of the future president reciting Copland's Lincoln Portrait, with William Eddins conducting the Chicago Symphony, Millennium Park, September 11, 2005. Eddins described the experience of conducting Obama on his blog ("Despite the fact that the Senator doesn’t read music he’s not about to show up anywhere unprepared"); Marc Geelhoed was in the crowd. (Via Mme Chic.)

Down with demographics

Wynton Marsalis: "At the root of our current national dilemmas is an accepted lack of integrity. We are assaulted on all sides by corruption of such magnitude that it's hard to fathom. Almost everything and everyone seems to be for sale. Value is assessed solely in terms of dollars. Quality is sacrificed to commerce and truthful communication is supplanted by marketing. The type of gamesmanship that separates races, genders and ages by 'preferences' is a most cynical brand. The integrity and dedication shown by American artists throughout our history provides a most needed and unequivocal counterstatement. On the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, let's recognize the pernicious effects of separating people by generic categories."

Related: Ethan Iverson's sprawling Marsalis interview.

Debussy experiment

Here's the young French group Quatuor Ebène playing the slow movement of Debussy's Quartet, from an outstanding Virgin Classics release:

Steve Smith has been using this imeem gadget on his blog. I don't love the look of the thing, and I don't like having ads pop up on my site, but it's a good way to spread music.

The Ebène, who are touring America in March, also flirt with pop; on YouTube you can watch them playing "Misirlou."

Reports from the front

Gustavo Dudamel is conducting Oliver Knussen's Violin Concerto and Mahler's Fifth at the New York Philharmonic this week. As of 8:30AM, twelve seats remain for the final performance in the run, on Inauguration Day. According to Zarin Mehta, the Philharmonic has yet to see a severe decline in donations or ticket sales in the wake of the economic crisis. Matters are different at the Metropolitan Opera, where the endowment has lost a third of its value and donations are down $10 million. The Baltimore Symphony has also lost ground. The rare bird in today's environment is the St. Louis Symphony, which reports a rise in sales, contributions, and attendance. David Robertson and the St. Louis have made a fine new recording of Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto (with Christian Tetzlaff) and Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy.

The long-awaited announcement

George Steel, longtime director of Miller Theatre at Columbia and very briefly the general director of the Dallas Opera, will take the helm of New York City Opera, a severely listing vessel. Dan Wakin's story is up on the New York Times site. I believe this is a happy ending to a sorry tale — at least for New Yorkers. The Countercritic deserves an honorable mention.

From Rach 3 to 30 Rock, via Ligeti

Steve Smith has the quick report on the NY Phil's 2009-2010 season announcement; Russell Platt also checks in. The big news — beyond what the orchestra announced back in October — is a staging of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre in May 2010. The new-music series (first program on Dec. 16, second on April 16) will include, as promised, some fresh faces: Sean Shepherd, Arthur Kampela, Lei Liang, and Arlene Sierra. Not to be overlooked is the fact that Alec Baldwin has appointed himself "announcer-in-residence." (As we know from Ian Parker's New Yorker profile, Baldwin is a full-on classical-music fan who "adores Mahler"; a Choire Sicha interview further revealed that the actor shops at ArkivMusic.) At the increasingly useful Philharmonic website you can explore the season month by month and watch a charming video about Alan Gilbert.

Happy birthday Morty

Morton Feldman's Two Pieces for Three Pianos, with Robert Moran, Loren Rush, and the composer. From Other Minds.

Hell yes, go trombones

From the YouTube Commentary Project, a video of Bernstein conducting the finale of the Shostakovich Fifth, with a dramatic recitation of the comments section. Some language may not be suitable for children or for Stalinists. (Hat tip: Larry Hardesty.)

We entertain!

A couple of times on this blog I've poked Entertainment Weekly for neglecting classical music. I'm happy to see that Bryant Manning is now contributing occasional reviews to EW's music pages. His latest is on Rostropovich.... Issue Project Room, an important site for venturesome music in NYC, has a handsome new website.... Joel Sachs has assembled a splendid lineup of works for this year's FOCUS! Festival, on the theme of California music. It runs at Juilliard from Jan. 23 to Jan. 31, culminating in a semistaged performance of John Adams's Death of Klinghoffer. All tickets are free.... Also of note this month: performances of Robert Ashley's three most recent operas — Dust, Celestial Excursions, and Made Out of Concrete — at La MaMa, Jan. 15-25. And: a program of American music from cold, northern climates by the American Modern Ensemble at the Times Center on Jan. 25. Libby Larsen and Stephen Paulus (Minnesota), Dennis Báthory-Kitsz (Vermont), Elliott Schwartz (Maine), Robert Paterson (Buffalo), and, of course, John Luther Adams (the anti-Palin) make up the bill. Two days later, JLA's astounding six-hour electronic soundscape Veils will play at Wesleyan University.

Reich at SXSW

Pitchfork has made a fine two-part video of Steve Reich's appearance at the SXSW festival in Austin, TX last year, with commentary from Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, members of So Percussion, and, of course, the precisely loquacious composer. Part 1 is above, Part 2 is here; don't miss a cameo by Hanson at the end. (Via NewMusicBox.)

Update: In the video Reich describes his life-changing encounter with A. M. Jones's Studies in African Music. The composer David Bruce points out that you obtain a copy of Jones's book at the Internet Archive (Volume 1, Volume 2). Bruce has a premiere at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC on Jan. 28.