Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Varèse approaches

On Monday and Tuesday, the Lincoln Center Festival will unleash (R)evolution, a survey of the works of Edgard Varèse. First, the International Contemporary Ensemble, under the direction of Steven Schick, will present pieces for small groups of instruments and the Poème électronique. Then Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic, fresh from their Ligeti triumph, will give the two big works for orchestra, Arcana and Amériques, together with Nocturnal, Octandre, and Ionisation.

You have my attention

Here's one way to begin a CD:

That's Christine Brewer singing the beginning of the Recognition Scene from Elektra. Donald Runnicles conducts the Atlanta Symphony on a new Telarc CD of Strauss scenes.

For Charles Mackerras

The Australian papers are reporting the death of Charles Mackerras, one of the most keenly musical conductors of our time. He had a gift for leading a kind of performance in which nothing out of the ordinary seems to happen and yet everything goes radiantly right. I remember his 1993 Rosenkavalier in San Francisco, with Felicity Lott as the Marschallin and Frederica von Stade as Octavian, as one of those perfect nights. He leaves behind a pile of great recordings: the masterly Janáček operas, the finest modern Idomeneo, vibrant Mozart and Brahms symphonies with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, a dozen others. It will be a very sad First Night of the Proms on Friday.

Update: A Guardian obituary by the late Alan Blyth.

Save Dance New Amsterdam

Dance New Amsterdam, a crucial center for dance performance and instruction in New York, is facing possible eviction from its downtown space.  If you wish to sign a statement of support, you can do so here. If current trends continue, within a few years the island of Manhattan will have lost the last traces of its once magnificent downtown scene. Is this the cultural legacy that Michael Bloomberg wishes to leave behind?

Previously: Bloomberg's masterpiece.

Pre-Bastille miscellany

Charles Downey at ionarts brings attention to Jonathan Harvey's Speakings and Tristan Murail's Les sept paroles, streaming at France Musique until July 24. Both works strike me as major statements.... Why is Kent Nagano leaving Munich in 2013? Jens Laurson has the goods.... Over at NewMusicBox, Molly Sheridan interviews Augusta Read Thomas, whose recent Jubilee is an electric, joyous piece.... The Minnesota Orchestra has announced participants for its next Composer Institute: Taylor Brizendine, Wang Jie, Polina Nazaykinskaya, Clint Needham, Ben Phelps, Narong Prangcharoen, and David Weaver.... Tomorrow night at Trinity Church on Wall Street, James Blachly will conduct his Sheep Island Ensemble in a benefit performance of Mahler's Fourth, with proceeds going to All Souls Music Camp in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.... The Mizzou New Music Summer Festival is under way in Columbia MO, with Alarm Will Sound in residence. Sunday's concert will feature world premieres by eight resident composers: Francisco Cortés-Álvarez, Christopher Dietz, Paul Dooley, Moon Young Ha, Edie Hill, Amy Beth Kirsten, Jeremy Podgursky, and Zhou Juan.... David Schiff on Gergiev's Stravinsky.... A lead editorial in the Guardian in praise of Bernstein's Mass.... I've linked many times to Tim Mangan's blog on this site, and I am very sad to see that the Orange County Register has chosen to discontinue it. Fortunately, Tim plans to start blogging elsewhere.

Angela Meade's Norma

At the New Yorker website I have a mini-review of Angela Meade's memorable Norma at Caramoor on Saturday. I covered her Semiramide last summer and named that performance one of the best of the year. As the estimable David Shengold points out, Meade is apparently scheduled to sing in Anna Bolena at the Met in the 2011-12 season, sharing the title role with Anna Netrebko. (I'm not sure I'd want to be in Netrebko's place in that matchup.) Two other engagements of interest: Il trovatore at Portland Summer Fest in August and the title role of Mercadante's Virginia at Wexford in October.

Update: Reviews from Tony Tommasini, Fred Cohn, James Jorden, Zachary Woolfe, and Mike Silverman. On Monday Meade appeared on WNYC's Soundcheck and sang "Casta diva" in the studio.

Varèse update

The International Contemporary Ensemble's Varèse preview concert is now streaming at Q2, with the two-piano version of Amériques the chief attraction. As Steve Smith observed in his Times review, it's fascinating to hear Varèse's musical ideas shorn of their spectacular orchestration. By the way, I'd like to mention again Jacob Greenberg's fine CD Solitary, with a strikingly polystylistic Lied ohne Worte by the pianist.

Quote of the day

"Composition, contemporary composition, is where reviewing comes to life. Complaining about interpreters, or rooting for them, however legitimate, is just fidgeting. Criticism joins the history of its art only when it joins battle, for or against, with the music of its time." — Virgil Thomson, 1974

Photo: Carl Van Vechten.

In ebb yet terrible and deep

Here's a remarkable story: the other night on the Suffolk coast of England, Bob Shingleton, proprietor of the blog On an Overgrown Path, saved a boy from drowning. The episode took place in Gorleston, some thirty-five miles north of Aldeburgh, where the dismal tale of Britten's Peter Grimes unfolded; this one had a happier ending. Bob initially withheld his name from the media, not wishing to claim credit, but chose to reveal himself when news stories gave a distorted view of the incident. I hope that his brave act is duly recognized.

Musique magique

The radically danceable music of Burkina Electric—Maï Lingani, Wendé K. Blass, Lukas Ligeti, Pyrolator, Zoko Zoko, and Idrissa Kafando—descends tonight on the Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn. On July 25th the band returns to play Central Park's Summerstage. On y va!

Quote of the day

"I’ve seen more divalike behavior in Starbucks over soy milk than I’ve seen backstage at the Metropolitan Opera." — Lesley Weston, head of costumes at the Met. (Via ArtsJournal.)

Bring on the Berg

In the rolling hills of the Hudson River Valley it is to be a summer of Berg. This year's Bard Music Festival, based at Bard College, focuses on the almighty Austrian modernist and various kindred spirits. In addition to two weekends of concerts in August, Bard will present, in its allied Summerscape series, the American stage premiere of Franz Schreker's complexly decadent opera Der ferne Klang, for which Berg made the vocal score. The production, which opens on July 30, is by Thaddeus Strassberger, who did very well by Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots at last summer's festival. I'm also eager to hear Othmar Schoeck's deeply haunting song cycle Notturno, Franz Schmidt's apocalypse oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln, and (in concert) Kurt Weill's Royal Palace. Summerscape opens tonight with the first of several shows by the Trisha Brown Dance Company; an excerpt from Brown's Twelve Ton Rose, employing Webern's Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, is on the bill. Princeton University Press will soon publish the usual companion anthology, this one edited by the Berg and Schoenberg scholar Christopher Hailey, who also happens to be the world's leading authority on Schreker.

Patrick Swanson, who won Internet fame a few years back with his Which Major Work of Alban Berg Are You? quiz, recently directed my attention to a fascinating trove of Berg photographs on the Getty Images site. Many of these I had never seen before. There's one of Ernst Krenek delivering a eulogy at Berg's funeral; there's also a photo from the funeral of Gustav Klimt, with both Schoenberg and Berg visible in the upper left background (Berg looking foxy in his soldier's uniform). Here you can see the young Berg wading next to his brother Hermann, the co-inventor of the Teddy Bear. Alban looks very urchin-like in this childhood portrait. Where is that Berg coffeetable volume we've all been waiting for? And what about a Hollywood biopic, preferably starring Hugh Grant?

Classical music younger, hipper than late-night TV

That's what I conclude from today's New York Times story about declining audiences for late-night talk shows such as The Tonight Show and The Late Show. Writes Bill Carter: "....[T]he median age of [Jay Leno's] viewers has crept up to 55.6 from 46.6. Mr. Letterman’s audience is slightly younger, at 54.7." The latest findings by the League of American Orchestras, drawing on their own studies as well as the most recent NEA study of arts participation, indicate that the median age for the classical audience is forty-nine. In fact, that's younger than the median age of the entire prime-time television public.

One for Mahler

Elaine Stritch offers a birthday toast. (Via Gavin Plumley.)

Miscellany: Varèse fireworks, etc.

 

In advance of the Lincoln Center Festival's Varèse event (July 19 and 20), the International Contemporary Ensemble presents tonight a preview concert, including the New York premiere of the eight-hand piano version of Amériques. There will be a webcast on the increasingly invaluable Q2.... After forty-one years, Robert Christgau appears to have written his last Consumer Guide. Not many music critics can claimed to have changed the art; Christgau is certainly one of them.... A salute also to the fiercely perceptive Chris DeLaurenti, who has left The Stranger in order to take up creative projects.... Bob Shingleton has uncovered a YouTube recording of Hans Keller's notorious Piotr Zak hoax.... Browse the Proms archive.... Hannah Lash's Violations project is seeking funding through the end of July.... The Konzerthaus Orchestra has racked up well over half a million YouTube hits with its vuvuzela videos; now the august Berlin Philharmonic has gotten into the act.... The brilliant young American soprano Angela Meade talks to Zachary Woolfe about the role of Norma, which she will sing at Caramoor this Saturday and again on the following Friday. There will be a pre-opera lecture by the incomparable Andrew Porter.

Mahler 150

A sublimely happy one hundred fiftieth birthday to Gustav Mahler, who was born this day in 1860, in the Bohemian village of Kaliště. The birthplace will host an open-air concert tonight, with Thomas Hampson, Anne Sofie von Otter, Marita Solberg, and Manfred Honeck conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. WFMT has gone all-Mahler for the day; Ö1 is also Mahler-heavy. Gavin Plumley is making a pilgrimage to Mahler's grave in Grinzing; Tim Smith writes movingly about his youthful discovery of the composer. Mahler Records allows you to browse through more than two thousand extant recordings. The audio above is the Chorus Mysticus from the Eighth Symphony, with Jascha Horenstein conducting the London Symphony and various choruses in an electrifying live performance at Royal Albert Hall, in 1959.

Previously: Mahler graffiti, Mahler on the beach, A Mahler list, Mahler grooves.

For Cesare Siepi

The supremely sensual Italian bass, who passed away yesterday in Atlanta, Georgia, sings Don Giovanni at Salzburg in 1954, with Dezső Ernster as the Commendatore, Otto Edelmann as Leporello, and Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting.

Atonal hilarity

On a slow summer day, here's a Rest Is Noise golden oldie: "Arnie Schoenberg and His Second Viennese School," a spoof radio commercial perpetrated by Robert Conrad, Kenneth Jean, and Matthias Bamert on the Cleveland station WCLV for April Fool's Day, 1977.  A couple of discographic notes: the superb Lulu death-shriek is delivered by Evelyn Lear, while the monstrously slow rendition of the 11/4 bar in Stravinsky's Rite comes courtesy of the dulcet baton of Lorin Maazel — an in-joke for Cleveland listeners. Thanks again to Mr. Conrad for giving permission to post the commercial.

Ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds