Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Stravinsky Festival

Rite of Spring. The New Yorker, May 19, 2008.

More Igormania is on the way: the Michael Clark Company's Stravinsky Project comes to Lincoln Center in early June. Bob Shingleton caught the show in Norwich.

From the archive

This 1994 recording of Domus playing Fauré's Piano Quintets is exquisite in every respect, and probably brings you about as close as you can get to hearing the imaginary music of Vinteuil in Proust. It's overpriced on Amazon; go to ArkivMusic instead. Reminder: I have a list of current CD picks in the left column.

Clarification

John von Rhein, in a thoughtful piece on Riccardo Muti's Chicago appointment, quotes a phrase from my post the other day, but he takes it out of context. I did not say that a "'jet-set celebrity conductor' mind-set ... brought Muti" to Chicago. Rather, I said that if Muti had been guest-conducting frequently at the New York Philharmonic while Alan Gilbert was serving as music director, then Gilbert would have had "the shadow of a jet-set celebrity conductor hanging over him." That is not a statement about Chicago's motivations for hiring Muti. Nor is it intended as a putdown; I was simply pointing out that Muti is an international superstar among conductors, while Gilbert, as yet, is not. I made sure to state that Muti's repertory is unpredictable, that he has led quite a bit of new music, and that at his best he is an electrifying conductor.

Anniversary issue

"I have four razors and a dictaphone."
— Andrey Tarkovsky, 1979

Many thanks to all who have visited the blog over the past four years — 3.3 million page views.

Alaska photojournal

Stravinsky once spoke of the "violent Russian spring that seemed to begin in an hour and was like the whole earth cracking." The composer John Luther Adams, whom I profile in this week's New Yorker, quoted that line to me when he picked me up at the airport in Fairbanks; the Alaskan thaw had begun quite suddenly the previous day, and the snow was already half gone. Below are photos from my trip to Alaska last month.

Muti goes windy

The Chicago Symphony has chosen Riccardo Muti as its next music director — or, it might be better to say, Muti has chosen it. Reports from Andrew Patner and John von Rhein suggest that the maestro forged an unusually strong bond with the great Chicago ensemble during a concert series and European tour last fall. While I've had mixed impressions of Muti's conducting over the years — sometimes he achieves searing intensity, sometimes icy perfection — I expect that some spectacular concerts are in the offing. One thing I like about Muti is that his repertory choices are unpredictable. In recent concerts he's presented Prokofiev's Third Symphony, Hindemith's Nobilissima Visione and Sancta Susanna, Nina Rota's Piano Concerto, and his beloved Scriabin. He was scheduled to lead the Copland Third at the New York Philharmonic in March before withdrawing because of flu. He programmed a fair amount of new music while at the Philadelphia Orchestra: Berio, Ligeti, Ralph Shapey, Steven Stucky, Christopher Rouse, and Richard Wernick. I hope he casts his net even wider in Chicago.

When the New York Philharmonic picked Alan Gilbert as its next music director last summer, it also named Muti to an untitled role as a frequent guest conductor; he was expected to lead six to eight weeks of concerts per season. Dan Wakin reports that Muti plans to reduce that commitment (the conductor says he never agreed to a specific number of weeks), and that the guest role will end when he arrives in Chicago in 2010. Zarin Mehta, the Philharmonic's executive director, understandably describes that outcome as a "disappointment." I'm puzzled, though, by Wakin's assertion that the news from Chicago has generally "dampened spirits" at the orchestra (there are more details in a follow-up piece today). I see no reason why this should be so. Muti is a brilliant conductor, but he's hardly the last of the greats. I personally dreaded the idea that Philharmonic would hire him full-time, and was pleased when they went with Gilbert instead. After two music directors of the elder-statesman type, it was time for a younger leader, one alert to the challenges and opportunities of presenting classical music in modern America. Mehta says as much in both Wakin articles. In fact, Gilbert now has more room to make his mark, without the shadow of a jet-set celebrity conductor hanging over him. You won't need a Guerrieri diagram to keep track of the hierarchy. Chicago seems to have different needs at the moment, although I join Joshua Kosman in wondering about the long-term wisdom of their approach. Incidentally, Chicago has never had an American-born director, although Theodore Thomas, the orchestra's founder, came to this country when he was ten.

Appearance

I will be reading tonight alongside the novelist Rivka Galchen at the Russian Samovar, 256 West 52nd Street. The event is hosted by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, my mighty and gracious publisher. Starting time is 7PM; admission is $5.

Music played: Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra (Levine recording), Stravinsky's Les Noces (Pokrovsky Ensemble), Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony (Haitink recording), Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians (Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble).

John Luther Adams

Song of the Earth. The New Yorker, May 12, 2008.

A recording of JLA's Dark Waves is attached to the online version of the piece (headphones or stereo hookup strongly recommended). I'll post a photojournal soon. The above photo shows the composer in The Place Where You Go to Listen.

"Wotan leaves Valhalla"

Photo: Wagner in Bayreuth, 2004.

The official announcement came today: Wolfgang Wagner, Richard Wagner's grandson, will step down as director of the Bayreuth Festival on August 31, one day after his eighty-ninth birthday. He has been in charge since the first postwar festival in 1951, though he shared power with his brother Wieland until Wieland's death in 1966. His daughters, Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina Wagner, have made a joint bid to take direction of Bayreuth in his wake. More at Bloomberg Arts.

Henry Brant, etc.

A maverick among mavericks, Henry Brant has died at the age of ninety-four. Kyle Gann, Frank Oteri, and Josh Kosman have obits.... John Luther Adams's profoundly impressive Dark Waves will be performed this week by the La Jolla Symphony under the direction of Steven Schick. My profile of the composer appears in The New Yorker next week.... A guide to Sibelius's favorite stimulants (via Clownsilly).