Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Cross-street sunset agenda

Here comes a grand weekend for music new and old in New York. The NOW Ensemble appears at VIM Tribeca tonight: premieres by Missy Mazzoli, Judd Greenstein, and David Crowell, slightly older works by Gregory Spears, Matt McBane, Mark Dancigers, and David Kant. Also tonight, the Emerson Quartet begins a Beethoven survey at Carnegie Hall, in the course of which the sacred sixteen quartets will be coupled with all manner of interesting repertory: Mozart's "Dissonance," Ives's Second, Webern's Five Pieces, Bartók's Third, Rihm's Fourth, Shostakovich's Fifteenth, and a new piece by Kaija Saariaho. And at the New York Philharmonic Lorin Maazel kicks off the last weekend of his Brahms festival with the Third and Fourth symphonies. Down at The Stone on Friday night, Chris McIntyre inaugurates a month-long series called Trombonophilia, in which the René Pape of the brass section takes center stage in composed and/or improvised programs. Note a Ne(x)tworks series coming up later in the month. Also on Friday, counter)induction presents a folk-inflected concert at Tenri. Saturday night sees the onset of the immense, twenty-six-hour Bang on a Can Marathon at the World Financial Center, details of which I've blogged below. On Sunday afternoon the American Symphony Orchestra offers a rare chance to hear works of Shostakovich's colleague Mieczysław Weinberg. Same afternoon the Imani Winds pay tribute to Josephine Baker at the Apollo. And on Saturday and Sunday the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble begins a Notable Women festival, curated by Joan Tower; the opening program, which is heard first at the Chelsea Art Museum and then at DIA:Beacon, includes a premiere by Asha Srinivasan and Ruth Crawford Seeger's extraordinary String Quartet 1931.

More on Atlanta

Julia Wallace, the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, responds to Robert Spano's accusation that the paper is doing away with classical-music criticism. The notion that the Journal-Constitution would want to balance criticism with behind-the-scenes arts coverage is in itself sensible. Obvious, in fact; newspapers have been doing exactly that for a hundred years. The fact remains: it would be ridiculous and embarrassing if the lead paper of a major city such as Atlanta were to lack authoritative, regularly published critics in each area of the arts. It remains unclear what exactly the paper is intending to do.

In Minnesota, meanwhile, the Star Tribune appears to have cut loose its only full-time classical critic, Michael Anthony. Lani Willis of the Minnesota Opera laments the decision in a letter to the editor. (Via the Minnesota Public Radio blog. Read more here.) Have these editors all attended the same rationalization seminar? They declare themselves devoted to arts coverage, yet they are eliminating or restricting the people best suited to provide that coverage. You're not going to get smart reporting on the arts unless you have specialists on staff who know the field.

Conservatoire de Flea

I had no idea that Flea, the habitually shirtless bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, had been such a music geek in high school. So I learned from this Washington Post story, which goes on to describe how Flea has set up the Silverlake Conservatory of Music in his LA neighborhood. (Via ArtsJournal.)

Film score top 10

Terry Teachout ponders an interesting question: is there a great Hollywood film score written for a comedy rather than a drama or a thriller? It's hard to think of one, though I am tempted to put Danny Elfman's Beetlejuice in the near-great category. Does Charade, with the fabulous Henry Mancini music, count as a comedy? I agree with much of Terry's top-ten Hollywood film-score list: certainly Vertigo, Chinatown, Adventures of Robin Hood, On the Waterfront, and Laura make the grade. I prefer Copland's Of Mice and Men to The Heiress. I also love Mancini's Touch of Evil (possibly a very dark comedy), Ellington and Strayhorn's Anatomy of a Murder, Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings, and — must be honest — John Williams's Star Wars. Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, and other classics have great title themes, but the scores don't control the unfolding of the narrative as do, say, Jerry Goldsmith's music for Chinatown and Bernard Herrmann's for Vertigo. I've limited myself to one film per composer; otherwise I'd be tempted to pick three or four more Herrmann scores. Vertigo belongs among the great musical works of the century.

Lisa Hirsch has the answer: Carl Stalling.

Composer in uniform

Here's a military item for Memorial Day weekend. Seth Colter Walls, a journalist who covers the Mideast, sent me links to a personal site and a blog run by Lt. Daniel Todd Currie, who's presently serving as an engineer with the Air Force in Baghdad, helping to equip Iraqi security forces. He's also a composer. He studied with Tristan Murail at Columbia and regularly attended concerts at Miller Theatre while he was a student; his tastes run from Xenakis and Scelsi to Adams and Pärt and on to Trent Reznor and Radiohead. He's obviously had little time for composition since he's been posted in Baghdad, but he's written some ringtones that are available as MIDI files on his site — rather more dissonant and contrapuntal than the norm. He's also using GarageBand to compose some short pieces that he plans to assemble into a suite titled Green Zone Diversions. Waiting to be performed is a new piece for saxophone quartet, Study in Conductivity, which the composer calls "the wildest sax quartet ever written." I've seen the score and it is indeed pretty wild — there's one passage where pulses of 12, 13, 14, and 16 to the bar are layered in rapid streams. Please bear in mind, if you're visiting Dan's blog, that many soldiers' blogs have been shut down for a variety of reasons, so it might be helpful to avoid getting into obvious controversies if you're moved to comment. In other words, don't mention Boulez. Let's hope that he and as many others as possible over there stay safe.

MP3: Stravinsky's Feu d'artifice played by the United States Air Force Band on its new album Innovations.

Previously: John Cage in Iran.

Erased memento

I no longer have any idea when or where I took this picture. I used my old Olympus camera, which had the property of making everything look a little post-impressionist.

Notations

You can still hear Ingram Marshall's softly haunting orchestral piece Orphic Memories via an Orpheus Chamber Orchestra broadcast on WNYC.... Residents of Cincinnati should be aware of the Music07 festival June 10-16.... At the annual spring sale of music manuscripts at Sotheby's on Wednesday, Ludwig van Beethoven was once again the clear winner, the only complete manuscript of the "Kreutzer" Sonata fetching 311200 pounds.... For several years the documentary filmmaker Kerry Candaele has been making a film about Beethoven's Ninth — about the manifold modern understandings of this unquenchable work. I'd try to explain the concept behind the movie, but this trailer does the trick. I look forward to the finished film.... On May 30 in San Francisco Formerly Known As Classical presents another concert of "music written in the last 18 years played by performers 18 and under."... Usher in summertime by listening to Carlo Bergonzi's golden rendition of "Che gelida manina," courtesy of vilaine fille.

Addled in Atlanta

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is making a sad mistake. It has decided to eliminate several lead critic jobs, including that of Pierre Ruhe, a stylish and perceptive classical critic. From a story in Musical America by Steve Dollar: "Bert Roughton Jr., managing editor of the paper's newly minted print division..., insists that cultural coverage will not diminish. It will simply change. 'The volume of local arts coverage will increase,' Roughton said, promising a stronger emphasis on enterprise reporting across all the arts beats, and, in particular, what he calls the 'business of culture.' 'This will help round out our coverage. Not only will readers get criticism [of local arts events], they'll understand the context that the work is produced in.'... According to Roughton, there will still be reviews of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He just can't say under whose byline they will appear, or if they will appear as frequently as they do now." This is all contorted nonsense. Critics such as Ruhe play a crucial role in the cultural ecosystem of a city. The Atlanta Symphony, which is experiencing remarkable growth under Robert Spano, will suffer without informed reports on its activities — and its principal activity isn't behind-the-scenes bustling around but making music. What's more, I predict that the Journal-Constitution will suffer as well. No doubt the paper believes that it is adapting to modern reality by doing away with criticism in favor of profiles, process pieces, and the like, but it will probably only drive away loyal readers without attracting new ones. Spano writes in a letter to the editor: "Atlanta deserves a newspaper of substance — one that contributes to a city that values expression, ideas and creativity." It's not too late for the paper to commit itself to the arts once again.

Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press writes in with an appropriate analogy: would the Journal-Constitution feature profiles of baseball and football players, after-game locker-room interviews, and stories about the "business of sports" without covering the actual games?

Funnier than intended?

Drew McManus rightly highlights a recent Saturday Night Live joke: "During a concert of the Virginia Symphony at the 400th anniversary celebration of the founding of Jamestown, President Bush briefly took over conducting the orchestra, which explains why the orchestra is now $4 trillion in debt."

Tom Hartley adds: "Responding to the faint applause at the end of the performance, Maestro Bush told the audience, 'It's because of people like you that classical music is dying!'"

NEA resurgent?

The National Endowment for the Arts, a remnant of John F. Kennedy's dream of a "New Frontier in the Arts," may be getting a significant boost: yesterday the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee of the House of Representatives recommended that the NEA receive a $35 million increase. Galen Brown at Sequenza21 reports on the various hurdles that stand in the way of the proposal. Messages to politicans should help the cause — and, while you're at it, you might want to suggest that your senator and representative support the Internet Radio Equality Act, which would strike down the music industry's destructive new royalty rates for online broadcasting. For more, read Byrne.

Playlist

— Albert Roussel, Symphony No. 3 and Bacchus et Ariane, Stéphane Denève conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Naxos) [vibrant from the first chord]
— Ives, Second Symphony and Robert Browning Overture (critical editions), Kenneth Schermerhorn conducting the Nashville Symphony (Naxos) [for more on the edition go here]
— Elgar and Barber, Cello Concertos, Anne Gastinel and Justin Brown conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony (Naïve)
— Mahler, Symphony No. 3, Bernard Haitink conducting the Chicago Symphony (CSO Resound)
— Domenico Scarlatti, Sonatas, Yevgeny Sudbin (BIS)
— Donnacha Dennehy, Elastic Harmonic (NMC)

Reading: Rob Sheffield's Love Is A Mix Tape, Lawrence Kramer's Why Classical Music Still Matters.

Note: A reader asks whether these Playlist selections are recommendations. I believe Steve Smith, the originator of the Playlist concept, once gave a good answer to this question, but I can't seem to find it. The idea is that these discs have snagged my attention for one reason or another, but I'm not necessarily placing them in the must-buy category; I'd need to listen a few more times before making that always risky assessment. However, Denève's disc is a surefire proposition, particularly if you don't know Roussel's neoclassical masterpiece. Sudbin, whose recent Frick Collection recital I missed, seems to be a major artist in the making; the 2004 Scarlatti disc is alive with virtuosity, intelligence, and wit. And the Chicago Mahler Third is gloriously played throughout, though I sometimes wanted more flexibility of tempo and vividness of characterization from Haitink. The out-of-print Jascha Horenstein on Unicorn remains my favorite [copies available in the UK]; Abbado and the Berlin are also terrific.

Round and round we go

On Sunday I spoke at the commencement ceremony at the Longy School of Music. The gist of the talk was to urge graduates to tune out as completely as possible the neverending chatter over the future of classical music, on the grounds that no prediction, either rosy or dire, has ever matched the complex, ambiguous, half-scary, half-hopeful reality of musical life as it has unfolded year by year. Following the thesis to its logical conclusion, I admitted that for a group of creative-minded young musicians my own speech was a total waste of time, but one that might save them from wasting time in the future. To underline the point I read aloud a series of quotations:

"Concerts are poorly attended and budget deficits grow from year to year. The general level of musical performance is visibly declining. Only the flattest, least challenging music enjoys success." — Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt, 1926

"OPERA IS ALIVE, SAYS RICHARD STRAUSS: THE FAMOUS COMPOSER RIDICULES THE PESSIMISTS AND HIS VIEWS ARE STRONGLY SECONDED BY ALBAN BERG" — New York Times headline, 1930

"There is no point in talking of a 'killing-off' or a 'dying-off' of present-day concert music.... The great mass of people enter at last the field of serious music. Radio is responsible, the talkies, the summer concerts, a growing appetite, a hundred things; really the fact of an art and a world in progress. You can no more stop it than you can stop an avalanche." — Marc Blitzstein, Modern Music, 1937

"The economic crisis confronting the American symphony orchestra is becoming increasingly acute." — New York Times, 1950

"Are symphony orchestras in trouble because of rising costs or because their programs have become dusty?" — New York Times, 1969

"There exists a primal apathy toward classical music in America.” — Newsweek, 1970

"Fewer classical records are being sold because people are dying. Today's dying classical market is what it is because fifteen years ago no one attempted to instill a love of classical music in the then impressionable children who have today become the market." — Stereo Review, 1970

"From the concert organizations, managers, and publicists, there has come a steady crescendo of distress. Ticket sales are indeed drastically down, even for famed organizations and big-name soloists. The combination of smaller income, rising costs, and prohibitive production and operating overhead spells potential bankruptcy for many in the concert business.... The halls are growing depressingly empty. Even the subscribers to prepaid series stay away in hordes. The hard-core, old-guard music lovers are shrinking numerically." — Abram Chasins, Music at the Crossroads, 1972

“Mr. Chasins ... complains that the musical world is falling apart before his eyes and goes about crying woe. He's come to sing a dirge, but everyone is so busy doing his thing at the wake that it is hard to find the corpse.” — Times review of Music at the Crossroads

"What is it only a few years ago that doom-sayers were predicting the quiet demise of classical records? ... Not so today." — New York Times, 1976

"Classical records are in trouble. In fact, the problems that presently beset the industry may soon begin to affect not only the record buyer but the musical health of the country as a whole." — New York Times (same writer as above), 1980

"Americans are buying classical music recordings in greatly increased numbers." — New York Times, 1983

"Walking through the aisles of the larger compact-disk emporiums... one is tempted to say, Yes, things always look worse than they are, but this time the world really is coming to an end." — New York Times, 1995

The last one was me, before I knew better. As PDQ Bach wrote, in his immortal cantata Iphigenia in Brooklyn: "Dying, dying, dying, and yet in death alive."

Messiaen's birds

Here's another ornithological-musicological resource: Robert Fallon has got hold of several of Messiaen's field recordings of birds and compared them with corresponding passages in Oiseaux exotiques. Fallon estimates that "Messiaen's pitches are about 66% true to his models." His essay on the subject will appear in Christopher Dingle's forthcoming collection Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art, and Literature.

Other radio

Other Minds has launched a completely amazing online archive called RadioOM. You have to create an account to use it, but there's no charge. The vast array of offerings available — performances, interviews, discussions, and so on — will render any aficionado of far-out late-twentieth-century American music giddy with delight. I just listened to Steve Reich's 1970 concert at the UC Berkeley Museum, including My Name Is and Phase Patterns. On a semi-related note, WNYC kicks off an American music festival on May 26, running programs both on its regular Evening Music program and on the twenty-four internet stream.

Three orchestras in two days: Epilogue

In the course of my orchestral travelogue I wondered why a full-scale Saturn rocket could be found at a rest stop on I-65 in northern Alabama. There is, of course, a ready explanation. The Marshall Space Flight Center, where many early NASA rockets were developed under the directorship of Wernher von Braun, is located in nearby Huntsville. I learned this from the composer Phillip Ratliff, who is based at Miles College in Fairfield, and who has written an orchestral piece in celebration of the I-65 rocket, titled, naturally, I-65 Rocket. The Alabama Symphony has performed the piece several times.

Yet more Vexations

In a post below I described the 1963 "premiere" of Vexations by Satie, as conceived by John Cage. I've heard from the scholar-musician Joshua Rifkin, who confirms that it was indeed he who performed under the pseudonym "Joshua Rivkin" at the Vexations marathon. He writes: "I might add that I was also, indirectly, responsible for the unexpected appearance of Howard Klein: I was supposed to take another slot in the course of the night, but I had gone uptown to my then girlfriend's house, fell soundly asleep ... and failed to wake up until late the following morning (with Vexations still playing in my inner ear)." Rifkin notes that the Tate Modern is about to present a Vexations in conjunction with a showing of Andy Warhol's film Sleep; the pianists will include Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman, and Rifkin himself, reprising his original role with hopefully a little extra caffeine. The dates are May 27 and 28.

Miscellany

This page allows you to compare the bird voices in Messiaen's Réveil des oiseaux with recordings of the actual birds in question. The melodic translations are sometimes fanciful but the rhythms are incredibly precise. (Link courtesy of Radiohead.) ... An Unamplified Voice delivers another thoughtful critique of Gelb's Met.... KFJC, the radio station of Foothill College in Los Altos, CA, is broadcasting Berio's complete Sequenzas tonight at 6PM. There will be commentary from Berio scholars David Osmond-Smith and Janet Halfyard and from Brian Brandt, head of Mode Records, whose Sequenzas recording sets the standard. A 24-hour Sun Ra tribute follows. All this is part of Mayhem 2007, a month-long multi-genre festival somewhat reminiscent of the famous Orgies at WHRB — which on Wednesday begins broadcasting the complete Ligeti.... The hip event tonight in NYC is the Orchestra of the SEM Ensemble, playing — together again for the first time — Strauss's Metamorphosen and Stockhausen's Zeitmasse.... Speaking of Osmond-Smith, he has co-authored, with Paul Attinello, a lively-sounding article in Contemporary Music Review: "Gay Darmstadt: Flamboyance and Rigor at the Summer Courses for New Music."

Three orchestras in two days: Day 2

My expedition to the Orchestras of I-65 enters its second day. (Previously: Prologue and Day 1.) After breakfast with three Nashville Symphony players — Zeneba Bowers, Jeremy Williams, and Roger Wiesmeyer — I pilot the Pontiac G6 back on the interstate and head toward Birmingham. At 187 miles, it's a somewhat less strenuous drive than the 287 miles that I had to traverse between morning and evening performances on Thursday. As I enjoy doing when I drive this great country of ours, I randomly exit the highway a couple of times and venture onto two-lane roads. The routine is that I keep on driving until I begin to feel lost, anxious about the time, and/or psychically uncomfortable, at which point I turn back. That point arrives around the time I pass the scenic ruin above. A detail:

But this spot in Tennessee is very pleasant:

I'm surprised to see a rocket at a rest stop in Alabama:

Walk around Birmingham at the end of the afternoon:

Tomorrow's flea market:

The Alabama Symphony plays at the Alys Stephens Center for the Performing Arts, on the campus of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. From the outside this eleven-year-old venue looks a bit drab:

The main performance space, Jemison Concert Hall, is still rather somber in mood — brown is the color of classical music everywhere — but it's a comfortable place to hear music:

The hall seats 1346, with the audience surrounding the players. The acoustics are very good; the orchestra makes a full, rich sound, with excellent definition of timbres and very responsive bass. The program, under the direction of the ASO's new music director, Justin Brown, consists of Weber's Freischütz Overture, Elgar's Cello Concerto (with Anne Gastinel), and the Eroica. It's a formidable performance by any standard. Brown, a young Englishman with a passion for new music and a distinct flair for traditional repertory, seems to be off to a great start here in Birmingham. More in the New Yorker soon.

Three orchestras in two days: Day 1

My 7PM flight to Indianapolis arrives at 1AM. After a few hours' sleep I proceed through Monument Circle to the Hilbert Circle Theatre, for an 11AM matinee by the Indianapolis Symphony. The gifted young French conductor Stéphane Denève, who is reportedly working wonders with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, leads Berlioz's Francs-juges Overture and Mahler's First. On Friday and Saturday he will add to the program Une Lueur dans l'age sombre (A Glimmer in an Age of Darkness) by the young French composer Guillaume Connesson. Hilbert Circle Theatre is an ex-movie theater of the grand pre-war type:

By 2PM I'm heading south on I-65, which will be my constant companion on this Midwestern/Southern orchestra road trip:

The vehicle is a Pontiac G6. Visible in the background are trucks and cows, signifying America:

Playing on the stereo are the new Wilco record, Björk's Medúlla (meant to grab Volta), Georg Friedrich Haas's in vain (with regards to Sam Adams), the fabulous Mark Padmore Handel recital (soon out on Harmonia Mundi), and Golijov's Ayre (a favorite driving record). Believe it or not, the CD-recognition system knows what in vain is when I put it in the player. It refuses, however, to play it. So instead I find myself listening three times in succession to Wilco's Sky Blue Sky. The first thing that grabs me is the closer, "On and On and On," built on an unending two-note whole-tone ostinato against which the vocal line and accompanying harmonies gently clash. In general, though, this is a less new-musicky, noise-drunk Wilco; it's more an homage to the Band (Garth Hudson ghost-church organ) and Tonight's the Night Neil Young (Nils Lofgren-style guitar). I've never really raved about Wilco before, but there is something piercing about the emotional landscape of this record. It certainly chimes well with Kentucky, through which I regretfully zoom almost without stopping:

6PM, Music City:

The music in question will be Kevin Puts's Elgar-inspired ...this noble company, Haydn's Symphony No. 103, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, as performed by the Nashville Symphony, under Alasdair Neale's direction, at the almost brand-new Schermerhorn Symphony Center:

Just now, when the room-service guy brought me a late-night fried-chicken salad, he saw the above picture on my computer and asked, "That picture, is it in America?" Not just America, across the street! A couple of shots from a late-night walk on the adjoining pedestrian bridge:

Musical details to follow in a forthcoming New Yorker.

LaKisha? Melinda??

American Idol has ceased to be interesting or amusing.