Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Arch-villain architecture

The view shared by Galka Scheyer and Harry Bosch.

A New Yorker commentary on the modernist villain's lair.

The new Geffen Hall

Vision Quest. The New Yorker, Oct. 31, 2022.

For Peter Schjeldahl

If it is possible for a critic to be a genius, then Peter was one. Just a few weeks ago, The New Yorker published one of his finest pieces ever, on Mondrian. It ends with a grandly dizzying sentence that contains the phrase "adamantine conundrum." This, I told him, was worthy of Wallace Stevens. Peter was a raucously, symphonically vital writer right to the end, immune to cliché and addicted to surprise. In person, he was quick, funny, honest, and wise. A couple of decades ago, in some now extinct diner in the East Village, we had a long conversation that touched on heavy matters, and in the course of it he said, "Faith is not panicking." Thank you, Peter, for everything.

Remembrances: David Remnick, The New Yorker, The New York Times

For Geoff Nuttall

Geoff playing a chacona, 2010.

One of the brightest, most generous lights in the American chamber-music world is gone: Geoff Nuttall, the first violinist of the St. Lawrence Quartet, died today at the age of fifty-six, of pancreatic cancer. It's devastating news to the hundreds of musicians who've worked with Geoff over the years, whether as students or as colleagues. And it's devastating news to audiences across North America — from the Banff Centre, where the quartet first broke through, to Palo Alto, where it is based, and on to Charleston, where Geoff led the chamber-music series at the Spoleto Festival. One of my favorite experiences as a critic-reporter came in 2001, when I followed the St. Lawrence on the road, to El Paso, Texas, and Joplin, Missouri. I'd covered the quartet's New York début, in 1992, and wanted to check in on their progress. Geoff was at the heart of the group and the chief source of its spontaneous, viscerally musical spirit. Behind his regular-guy affect was an exuberant, unpredictable, wide-ranging mind. Barry Shiffman, the former second violinist of the St. Lawrence, tells me that Geoff remained active to the end, biking to and from his chemotherapy appointments and leaving Barry huffing in the course of strenuous hikes. He will be profoundly and permanently missed.

Late-period Wagner sonnet

Once Wagner was the idol of a girl
steeped early in his “endless melody,”
as storms were slyly starting to unfurl
in Meistersinger-land, her Germany.
When storm troops marched, that world was terror-tossed;
symbol of dread, the fierce Wagnerian sound
of Berchtesgaden signaled holocaust,
a battle cry piercing her underground.

In a new land, she would emerge matured,
at peace one day to know the old elation
hearing the Ring, soaring past pain endured,
singing redemption and conciliation.
At last, she gave her long-withheld applause
to music – pure, unmarred by human flaws.

  — Anne Marx, "With Wagner: Through Storm to Calm" (1980)

See also: Bad Wagner Poetry (although I would not place Marx's poem in that category)

Otello at Opera Philadelphia, Medea at the Met

In Extremis. The New Yorker, Oct. 17, 2022.

Schoeck's Elegie

A Cultural Comment on the New Yorker website.

At the grave of Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger

Previously: Toch, Lubitsch, Korngold, Salieri, Bruckner, Liszt, Georg Trakl, Willa Cather and Edith Lewis, Thomas Mann, Bach, Nietzsche, Monteverdi, Koussevitzky, Michael Furey, Luranah Aldridge, Ligeti, Frescobaldi, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Baudelaire and Beckett, Nadia and Lili Boulanger, Stravinsky and Nono, Zemlinsky, Schnittke, Fibich, X. Scharwenka, Elliott Carter, Enescu, Rachmaninov, Mahler and many others, Russ.

Thought of the day

"They gaily speak about differences between America and Italy. 'Take Caruso and Bing Crosby,' she says. 'You don't need such a big voice, if you are rich.'"

            — Bertolt Brecht, "The Goddess of Victory"

A Mattie Barbier moment

From Barbier's new album threads, which was recorded at The Tank. Video filmed at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Adams's Antony and Cleopatra

Immortal Longings. The New Yorker, Oct. 3, 2022.

Nightafternight playlist

New and recent releases of interest.

Andrew McIntosh, Little Jimmy, I have a lot to learn, Learning; Yarn/Wire (Kairos)

Mahler, Symphony No. 5; Semyon Bychkov conducting the Czech Philharmonic (Pentatone, out Oct. 14)

Mozart, Piano Sonatas; Robert Levin (ECM)

Odeya Nini, ODE (out Oct. 7)

Tristan: works of Liszt, Henze, Wagner, and Mahler; Igor Levit, Franz Welser-Möst conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (Sony)

Weinberg, Symphonies Nos. 3 and 7, Flute Concerto No. 1; Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducting the City Of Birmingham Symphony and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, with Kirill Gerstein and Marie-Christine Zupancic (DG)

she / her / hers: works by Milica Paranosic, Jessica Meyer, Gabriela Lena Frank, Adah Kaplan, Valerie Coleman, Laurie Anderson, Melissa Dunphy, Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté, Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux, Jessie Montgomery, Ana Sokolović, Laura de Rover; Lara St. John (Ancalagon)

Meyerbeer, Robert le Diable; John Osborn, Nicolas Courjal, Amina Edris, Erin Morley, Nico Darmanin, Marc Minkowski conducting the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and the Chœur de l'Opera National de Bordeaux (Bru Zane)

Schulhoff, Shapeshifter: Piano Concerto and other works; players from the Colburn School, including James Conlon leading the RVC Ensemble (Delos)

A Bára Gísladóttir and Skúli Sverrisson moment

Via the Louth Contemporary Music Society.

New horizons in negative dialectics

For Queen Elizabeth II

The late Queen was not known for making ostentatious progressive gestures, but her decision to send a telegram of condolence to Peter Pears after the death of Benjamin Britten, in 1976, was a quietly significant one. Britten ended his life in a position of exalted privilege, holding a peerage that the Queen had bestowed on him. Yet homophobia had shadowed him all along, and shaped perceptions of his work after his death. The telegram implicitly honored a gay relationship in what may have been an unprecedented way. I always thought warmly of the Queen for this ̉reason — that, and the fact that she somewhat resembled my mother, who adored her.

SF Opera centenary

San Francisco Opera, which just inaugurated its centenary season with the world première of John Adams's Antony and Cleopatra, is also offering what looks to be a riveting series of archival streams. Up now are offerings on a Slavic theme: Jenůfa with Elisabeth Söderström (1980), Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk with Anja Silja (1981), and excerpts from a 1945 Boris Godunov with Ezio Pinza.

An Anna Korsun moment

Messiaen on Rachmaninoff

Noise reader Vinny writes: "Here is a tale related to me by one of my college professors, Gerald Levinson, from his times studying with Messiaen. Messiaen had invited his corps of students to dinner. Conversation at the table was vibrant and had managed to swing towards judging the merits of Rachmaninoff. Loriod turned to Messiaen and asked, 'What DO we think of Rachmaninoff?' There was a two-minute pregnant pause while he considered. Then he rendered: 'We approve.'"

On a relevant and doleful note, Vinny has created an amazing online catalogue of Dies Irae quotations.

Rachmaninoff at Bard

Rachmaninoff in Valhalla.

Chart-Topper. The New Yorker, Sept. 5, 2022.

Monumentum pro Riccardo

A tribute to Richard Taruskin, on the New Yorker website.