Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

I say Sibelius, you say Sebelius

Breaking news: Obama taps Sebelius for health secretary.

"All the doctors who wanted to forbid me to smoke and to drink are dead." — Jean Sibelius

Previously: Sibelius in 2008, Obama-Sibelius.

Amiscellany

Happy eightieth birthday (tomorrow) to Frank Gehry, architect of the greatest concert hall of the modern era.... Norman Lebrecht gets an exclusive on the hot new mezzo-soprano Tutula Bartley.... The LA Times has a promising piece on Obama and the arts; Soho the Dog deconstructs the phrase "the arts count".... The Rocky Mountain News is no more; condolences to Marc Shulgold.... A fond farewell to Kyle Gann's PostClassic Radio.... The indomitable Alan Rich has a new home at the LA City Beat.... The Boston Symphony inaugurates its new recording series with discs and downloads of Bolcom, Ravel, Mahler, and Brahms; Jeremy Eichler sums up five years with James Levine.... Bob Shingleton likes the look of Pierre-Laurent Aimard's first season as artistic director of Benjamin Britten's glorious Aldeburgh Festival. But, John Amis has wondered, what does Aimard actually think of Britten's music?

Dessay v. Salieri

Rebecca Mead's profile of Natalie Dessay appears in this week's New Yorker (online for subscribers). In one scene, Dessay talks to Roland Geyer, the Intendant of the Theater an der Wien, about the possibility of singing in a revival of Falstaff — not the Verdi masterpiece but the 1799 version by Antonio Salieri:

A member of Geyer's staff went backstage and gave Dessay a copy of the Falstaff. During intermission, she paged through it, scanning the staves to see if the role rose to vocal heights sufficient to interest her. . . . "There's nothing to sing here," she said of the Salieri, leafing swiftly through in pursuit of a challenging aria before studying the music in greater detail. On a first pass, at least, she didn't find much. "If I do something without high notes, everyone will say, 'Oh, she doesn't have high notes anymore.' You can do it once, but if you do it again and again they start to talk, and then the reputation is gone."

Dessay sings in La Sonnambula at the Met starting on March 2. I'll review that production and the new Trovatore later in the month.

Lisa Bielawa in brief

Playtime. The New Yorker, March 2, 2009.

Miss Tully's revenge

Alice Tully Hall reopens on Sunday, and Lincoln Center has assembled an impressive lineup of artists for a two-week renovation festival: Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI, the Emerson and Belcea Quartets, violinist Daniel Hope, tenor Mark Padmore, David Robertson and the Juilliard Orchestra (Messiaen's From the Canyons to the Stars, which Tully commissioned), Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic, Philippe Herreweghe and the Collegium Vocale Gent (the Mass in B Minor), Paavo Järvi and the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (four Beethoven symphonies in one night), a new-music day with ETHEL, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Alarm Will Sound, and Steve Reich and Musicians, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. All tickets are $25, except when they're free.

Mendelssohn abides

The Youngest Master. The New Yorker, Feb. 23, 2009.

Claudio Abbado conducting the London Symphony, DG 471467.

Yet another Alban Berg Valentine

DR. SCHÖN: Monster!
LULU: You'll marry me in the end!

                            — Lulu, Act I

Previously: An Alban Berg Valentine, Another Alban Berg Valentine.

Small victory

From p. 143 of the stimulus bill, which the U.S. Congress passed yesterday: "$50,000,000, to be distributed in direct grants to fund arts projects and activities which preserve jobs in the non-profit arts sector threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn." An attempt by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to eliminate all arts and museum funding from the bill was defeated. Ironically, Sen. Coburn is the father of the outstanding young soprano Sarah Coburn, who has appeared many times at opera houses supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Last year the younger Coburn went home to Oklahoma to sing in Lakmé at the Tulsa Opera — a production made possible in part by a $15,000 grant from the NEA.

Avant Obama, etc.

Thanks to the footage above, we can now hear what Yo-Yo and company actually played during their 4'33"-long performance at the inauguration. (A "satirical hypothetical document," via Kyle Gann.) Elsewhere on YouTube: the Ophicleide Summit.... John Adams critiques young composers in an interview with Newsweek's Seth Colter Walls; Judd Greenstein responds.... The long-awaited Blog of Sedge. Also joining the fray is Matthew Gurewitsch.... Tony Tommasini of the New York Times answers readers' questions.... The violist Nadia Sirota and the vocalist Helga Davis are giving a new spin to the overnight show on WNYC. A recent program led with Britten's A Hymn to the Virgin, Cowell's Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10, Cage's Hymns and Variations, and Ingram Marshall's bewitching Hymnodic Delays. That's radio we can believe in.

Appearance in Dallas

I will be giving a multimedia lecture on twentieth-century music at the Dallas Museum of Art on Tuesday night, Feb. 10.

Grammy note

At last night's Grammy Awards, Radiohead showed once again that they are immense. Aside from the vaguely Sibelian wall of brass that buttressed "15 Step," moments of classical interest on the broadcast included: 1) Bono wearing a Beethoven T-shirt; 2) Elliott Carter's face appearing briefly when it was mentioned that he had won a Trustees Award. That was about it.

Not entirely in vain

A bout of work and travel derailed my plans to write a preview post for Georg Friedrich Haas's in vain, a darkly radiant modern masterpiece that was given its U.S. premiere by the Argento Chamber Ensemble at Miller Theatre last night. A second performance follows on Monday at the Austrian Embassy in Washington, DC. Washingtonians should also be aware that György and Márta Kurtág will present a Kurtág world premiere at the Library of Congress tonight. Both concerts are free.

Sylvain Cambreling / Klangforum Wien; Kairos 1233.

That I would pay to see

I watched the Golden Globe Awards last month, but I somehow failed to register that when Susan Sarandon was announcing the Best Actor winner she stated that Brad Pitt was nominated for his performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Britten.

Photo: Pitt as Britten, with Tom Cruise as Peter Pears.

Max Neuhaus

The pioneering percussionist and sound artist has died at the age of sixty-nine. Go here to read about his sound installations, and go to the pedestrian island at 46th and Broadway to experience his piece Times Square. (Via Betsey Biggs.)

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Kurtágs in New York

Jonathan Biss was one of a number of musicians who turned out to hear György and Márta Kurtág perform at Zankel Hall on Sunday night. Also in the crowd were Richard Goode, Leif Ove Andsnes, Christian Tetzlaff, and Ursula Oppens. Biss offers "fugitive thoughts" on his website. I wrote about a Vienna version of this stupendous program in 2006.

Sonatina from Bach's Cantata BWV 106, "Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit," arr. György Kurtág; G. and M. Kurtág, upright piano; BMC CD 123.

Mendelssohn at 200

Birthday extra: Composer in the Kitchen.

For Lukas Foss

Another major figure in American music passes from the scene. Obituary by Allan Kozinn; remembrance by Matthew Guerrieri.

"O Mensch, gib Acht," from Time Cycle; Adele Addison, soprano, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Columbia Symphony, Sony CD 63164. Photo: Library of Congress.

Who is the American composer?

The American Music Center has released a fascinating survey of the American composer population. You can read a summary as well as the entire report at NewMusicBox. Some patterns that emerge: 1) Composers don't make a mint from their work. They have a median total income of $45,000, and, on average, they derive 19% of that amount from composition. Yet they spend twenty-seven hours a week on composing-related activities. Eighty-five respondents — 6.4% of the total — make a living entirely from writing music. That figure is actually higher than I might have guessed. 2) Composers — at least those responding to this survey — are predominantly white and male: 85% and 79% respectively. But those figures will drop as new generations rise. 3) Composers are dabbling energetically in new technologies. Forty-three percent are on MySpace, 39% percent are on Facebook, and 63% either "do not mind" or "like the exposure" when people download their music for free.