Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

The final word on artificial intelligence

Whenever people start talking about the wonderful and terrifying possibilities of AI, I think of the above comment from the composer Ben Phelps, in 2017. To paraphrase for the current moment: if AI is capable of writing journalism, then surely AI is also capable of reading journalism. Let the chatbots write for one another, and leave us out of it.

Another Cassandra Miller moment

Wise words from Muti

Riccardo Muti, speaking to VAN, identifies a major problem in modern musical life: "Today, a music director is a principal guest conductor, he just conducts more concerts, that’s all. But a real music director has to take care, and not only musically. The musicians must feel free to knock on your door and say, 'Maestro, we have this problem.' It’s not only musical. That is a music director. If not, what is your profession? Just to say, 'It’s sharp. It’s flat. It’s sharp. Obbligato'? That’s nothing. Today, it’s changing. The world is changing. And now conductors have two orchestras and a theater? Three theaters and an orchestra? That is… Well, let’s not say that it’s immoral. But certainly, it is not artistic. In this way, I am of the old school."

Nightafternight playlist

New and recent releases of interest.

Liza Lim, Annunciation Triptych; Cristian Măcelaru conducting the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, with Emily Hindrichs (Kairos)

Mozart, String Quintets K. 515 and 516; Ebène Quartet with Antoine Tamestit (Warner)

Ligeti, Choral Works; Yuval Weinberg conducting the SWR Vokalensemble (SWR)

Caplet, Le Miroir de Jésus; Howard Arman conducting the Choir of Bavarian Radio and the Munich Radio Orchestra, with Anke Vondung (BR Klassik)

Messiaen, Des Canyons aux étoiles; Thierry Fischer conducting the Utah Symphony, with Jason Hardink, piano, and Stefan Dohr, horn (Hyperion)

Adès, Dante; Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Nonesuch, out April 21)

Schreker, Chamber Symphony, Nachtstück from Der ferne Klang, Lyrische Gesänge, Fünf Gesänge, Kleine Suite, Romantische Suite; Christoph Eschenbach conducting the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, with Chen Reiss and Matthias Goerne (DG)

Stenhammar, Complete String Quartets; Stenhammar Quartet (BIS)

Mahler, Symphony No. 9; Osmo Vänskä conducting the Minnesota Orchestra (BIS)

Mäkelä's soporific Stravinsky

Back in December, I had some skeptical words about Klaus Mäkelä, whose rise to the top of the conducting profession has been bewilderingly rapid. He is leading the Oslo Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris; is slated to take over the Concertgebouw; and is being closely scrutinized by at least two major American orchestras. After making his recorded début with a fairly dismal cycle of the Sibelius symphonies, Mäkelä has now turned to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Firebird. David Hurwitz has a strongly worded video review, and while I might not have chosen all the same turns of phrase — to call Mäkelä the "Ken doll of classical music" is perhaps premature — I can't disagree with the fundamental sentiment. These performances are unforgivably dull. It is a scandal to make the Rite sound so mechnical and lifeless. The Firebird comes across as minor Glazunov. With so much talent coming forward, why him?

For Bea

Earlier this month we lost our gorgeous, irrepressible, acrobatic, fastidious, eccentric, and deeply sweet cat Bea. She was fourteen, and wildly vital almost to the end. She joins Penelope and Maulina in the land of infinite treats. The painting below is by my friend Cyril Kuhn, an amazing Swiss-born, L.A.-based artist with a flair for Old Masterish animal portraiture.

An Ester Mägi moment

Inspired by a 5:4 post.

Adorno on ice cream

"The way every American child can eat essentially without pause a so-called ice-cone, a cone with ice cream, in that moment one can find a kind of fulfillment of childhood happiness, toward which our children once craned their necks in vain — that is really an aspect of utopia fulfilled."

                  — Theodor W. Adorno, "Kultur und Culture" (1958)

A major new work from Cassandra Miller

On March 11, the violist Lawrence Power and the Brussels Philharmonic, under the direction of Ilan Volkov, gave the world première of Cassandra Miller's I cannot love without trembling, as part of the Klarafestival in Belgium. A stream is temporarily online, and it demands to be heard — start around one hour and one minute in. The title is derived from the writing of Simone Weil: "Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling." The melodic material is based on the moirologia laments of the women of Epirus, as interpreted by the early twentieth-century Greek-American fiddler Alexis Zoumbas. Miller writes: "Using one of [Zoumbas's] moiroloi recordings as a source, I sang along many times (first to Zoumbas, then to myself) in a ritualized, meditative process I call ‘automatic singing.' This method transformed the moiroloi into the violist’s trembling-loving-mourning sighs. Within Zoumbas’ plaintive song, I sought a metaphysical space in which to dream – a space of separation-connection-absence-presence – in the hope to lament and to dream together in this hall tonight." At first hearing — and at second, and at third — the results are immensely beautiful and immensely haunting.

A Vicente Lusitano moment