Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Nightafternight playlist

New and releases of interest, in the Steve Smith manner.

Fantasia: Bach-Siloti Air on a G String, Bach Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, Liszt Sonata, Schubert-Liszt "Der Doppelgänger," Berg Klavierstück in D Minor, Berg Sonata, Busoni Fantasia Contrappuntisca, Busoni Nuit de Noël; Igor Levit (Sony Classical)

Herrmann, The Man Who Knew Too Much, On Dangerous Ground; William T. Stromberg conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Intrada)

Elis Hallik, Born in Waves and other works; Ensemble Synaesthesis, Triin Ruubel, Juta Õunapuu-Mocanita, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Fractales, Sirje Viise, Monika Mattiesen, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble for New Music Tallinn, Theodor Sink, Regina Udod, Ensemble U: (Kairos)

Weinberg, Dawn, Symphony No. 12; John Storgårds conducting the BBC Philharmonic (Chandos)

George Lewis, Afterword; Joelle Lamarre, Gwendolyn Brown, Julian Terrell Otis, David Fulmer conducting the International Contemporary Ensemble (New Focus)

Jürg Frey, String Trio; Apartment House (Another Timbre)

Cassandra Miller, Traveller Song, Thanksong; Miller, Plus-Minus Ensemble, Quatuor Bozzini (Black Truffle)

John Luther Adams, Three High Places, Darkness and Scattered Light, Three Nocturnes; Robert Black (Cold Blue)

Brecht's Paper War

Angelenos should not overlook a fascinating exhibit at USC's Doheny Library, curated by Grischa Meyer. Brecht's singular montage book Kriegsfibel, or War Primer, created when he was in exile in Los Angeles in the 1940s, is at the heart of the installation, but also included are Andrea Simon's film Salka Viertel, Every Sunday, on continuous video display, and items from USC's vast Lion Feuchtwanger archive. The first version of Kriegsfibel was given to Feuchtwanger and resides in the USC collection. Hanns Eisler later wrote Bilder aus der "Kriegsfibel," a setting of selected texts from Brecht's work.

More bad Wagner poetry

I'm not sure how I overlooked this one, particularly since it precedes Louis Sullivan's endlessly requoted architectural manifesto of 1896 ("Form ever follows function").

The Krenek Residence

The former Palm Springs home of Ernst Krenek, composer of Jonny spielt auf, Karl V, and two hundred and forty other published works, is on the market for $2,750,000.

Have some Maderna, m'dear

I am now the proud owner of the score of Bruno Maderna's 1972 orchestral piece Aura, nearly twenty inches in height. The USC Music Library has been giving away boxes of scores; I picked up this and Frank Martin's Passacaille, to form an odd pair. Maderna, the most generous and least disputatious of the Darmstadt avant-gardists, died young, at the age of fifty-three, and there is no telling what he might have done if he had lived to a grand old age. In his last couple of years, he composed Biogramma, notable for its glittering textures and intermittently songful lines; the chamber opera Satyricon, a proto-postmodern explosion of collage and pastiche; and the meditative, mystically inclined Ausstrahlung, written for the Persepolis festival of 1971. Aura, for its part, is an intricately structured work in which hectic episodes for minutely subdivided ensembles are interspersed with deep-breathing silences. At the end comes a haunting spell of controlled improvisation, in which horns, trumpets, and flute rotate through eighteen fragments over a slowly shifting mist of muted strings. Aura, Maderna playfully wrote, is "the essence of things, the essence of sound, and something like the aroma that pervades a room from the chicken cooking in the pot."

Kosky's Rheingold at the Royal Opera

Valhalla-on-Thames. The New Yorker, Oct. 2, 2023.

An Elis Hallik moment

The Estonian composer, born in 1986, has a new portrait CD of her works on Kairos, titled Born in Waves.

Current obsessions

A brief contribution to the New Yorker's Goings On About Town section, touching on three subjects that have lately caught my attention: the astounding life story of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch; Lauritz Melchior's deft turn in the 1946 comedy Two Sisters from Boston; and Raphaël Pichon's sumptuous new recording of the Monteverdi Vespers, with the Pygmalion ensemble.

For Stephen Gould

The opera world is mourning the American tenor Stephen Gould, who died on Tuesday at the age of sixty-one. For nearly twenty years at Bayreuth he was a committed and accomplished exponent of Wagner's intractable lead tenor roles. I was present for his début there, in Tannhäuser, in 2004, and wrote: "He has a powerful, flexible, beautiful voice, and, wonder of wonders, he is a charismatic actor. He sounded just as vivid at the end of the opera as he did at the beginning, which is a sign that he has the stamina for the biggest Wagner roles." This proved to be the case. What's more, he was a widely loved colleague, noted for his thoughtful engagement with whatever peculiar scenarios directors devised for him.

A Chris Knox moment