Indian Classical music

At left, you'll find a link to an article I just wrote on an upcoming pair of Indian classical concerts. Every so often, journalist has to write an article in which he has no idea what he's talking about, and this one is mine. I felt completely at sea. I had to look up most of the information, and the research sticks out, I think. If anyone out there can explain to me clearly just what a raga is, I would be most grateful. I tried reading the section on ragas in the Grove dictionary, but it was so detailed and technical it only confused me further, and it contained nothing I could translate clearly into a brief paragraph for the general reader.

Sorry, too, that I have been neglecting this blog. Things do seem to grind to a halt over the summer. I attended a couple of enjoyable events in July that I keep neglecting to mention. But there have only one week of August left, which is a relief, and I hope to be back on track soon.

Marvin Rosen dedicated two hours of his radio show to Frank Zappa this morning, and I, stuck in my office, missed it. The computer at my desk doesn't support the webstream from WPRB, either.

Late night thoughts on listening to Charles Ives

I thought, "Ives Lives."

But then I thought,

Wow.

"Ives Lives" should rhyme.

But it doesn't.

That's so freaky.

Chaplin with organ

Went down to St. Thomas' Church, Whitemarsh, after work July 12 for one of the summer carillon concerts. (St. Thomas' has one of only nine carillons in Philadelphia and the surrounding counties.) Amy Johansen, from Australia, played a vaeried, hourlong program that included some Gershwin songs; the horpipe from Handel's Water Music, minuets by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven; and even "Bridge Over Troubled Water," which I liked in her arrangement, despite feeling that I outgrew Paul Simon years ago. It was hot, but not overly so, and it was pleasant to sit out on the church grounds, read a book, watch the sun set over the suburban trees, and listen to the bells.

After the recital, everyone moved into the church for a showing of two silent Charlie Chaplin shorts -- "Twenty Minutes of Love" and "The Immigrant" -- accompanied by Kevin O'Malia on the organ. He brought out a wonderful sound from the instrument that had me wishing he would perform there in recital. (We talked about it afterwards, and he seemed open to the idea. I suggested Nielsen's "Commotio.") I was tickled when he interjected snippets of Charles Ives' "Variations on America" into "The Immigrant," especially at the moment when the ship enters New York Harbor.

I was also happy to see Brother Gerry Molyneaux in attendance. I took his film course when I was a sophomore at La Salle, and I hadn't seen him in thirty-five years. Brother Gerry is a Chaplin expert -- he wrote his doctoral dissertation on City Lights -- and when I learned about the films, I informed him by email. He's a little plumper than I remembered, but he looked wonderful for a man who must be approaching eighty. (I was never sure of his age, but he was already celebrating his twenty-fifth anniversary in the brotherhood when I was in school. He's still teaching, too, and has no plans to retire.) He seemed delighted by the entire evening, including the carillon recital and the church setting. He called the organ playing seamless, and he liked O'Malia's get-up -- Chaplin-like bowler hat, dark coat, bowtie, and Bermuda shorts. He said it captured Chaplin's comedy dynamic -- dignity above the belt, strange things going on below -- which I remember him talking about years ago. Now that I think about it, I realize he must have been a great teacher, because I remember much of what he said.

Good to see you again, Brother.

New column, at last

Today I posted my first column for the paper since April - a gap of nearly three months. (The link is at left.) The dry spell began after the previous reporter for The Springfield Sun resigned, and I spent close to two months writing news and features. After our new writer came on board about a month ago, I just didn't feel like it, which is always a viable excuse. I wish it had been an option in grade school.

Patriotic pap

Classical music stations go in for playing American music on the Fourth of July, just as they can't resist playing Messiah at Christmas or the Easter Oratorio at Easter. Unfortunately, much of the American music they play is not of the first rank, since most American music that would appeal to the classical radio demographic is not of the first rank. They subject us to a lot of stuff they wouldn't be caught dead broadcasting the rest of the year, such as the overblown symphonies of John Knowles Paine or William Henry Fry. Or they go in for the better, lighter fare from Gershwin and Copland, which is all very well, except there isn't very much of it, at least not enough to fill a whole day of programing.

Or they play a lot of Sousa. Now, I like Sousa, but while he's classic, he's not exactly classical, and the militarism bothers me. As I've noted elewhere, Sousa wrote great tunes that make up the soundtrack of American imperialism. I remember a few years ago, Bernard Holland, writing about Elliott Carter's Double Concerto for Harspichord and Piano, referred to what he called the "gray militancy" of the percussion parts. When I read that, I thought, you've got it all wrong: militancy is never gray. It's always cheerful, upbeat, happy. It's important that the boys are humming while they march to their deaths. Otherwise their heads would be too clear, and they might start thinking about why they don't want to go.

We do have one great piece of American classical music that pertains specifically to the Fourth of July holiday — Charles Ives's Fourth of July. It's so good you don't need the holiday as an excuse to listen to it, and yet I can't remember the last time I heard it on the radio. Brief as it is, it's much too raucous to show up on a wussy station like WRTI. And you'll never, ever hear it on the TV special from the lawn of the U.S. Capitol. So I took it upon myself to play it at home — my own sonic fireworks display, the louder the better. The only other American piece I listened to last Monday day was Elliott Carter's snappy little ASKO Concerto. Not really Americana, I grant you, but then, a lot of great American music isn't. It doesn't feel the need to be.

What did Bruckner want?

Oh, what to any of us want?

Benjamin Korstvedt has a clear and interesting article in The New York Times regarding the various editions of Bruckner's symphonies. It was helpful to me, since I've long found talk about Bruckner editions only slightly less confusing than the hubbub surrounding the chronology of the music of Charles Ives. The liner notes of every Bruckner album you buy have something to say the version used in the performance, and they all say the same thing: that the first published editions of the symphonies contain revisions and cuts that the naive, insecure Bruckner accepted on the advice of well-meaning but misguided friends, and only the editions based on his original manuscripts give us an clear idea of his real intentions.

Korstvedt says this is all hooey. Simply put, his contention is that Bruckner wanted and approved of the revisions that appear in the first published editions, and that the idea that he was somehow pressured into them against his better judgment is based on unprovable cliches about his character. This makes sense to me. I have the same problem, even at my lowly level. Whenever I go back over something I've written, I always find things that could be shortened, more felicitously phrased, or cut entirely. It's possible Bruckner felt the same way.

As a music consumer, though, I'm almost hoping Korstvedt is wrong, because my set of the complete Bruckner symphonies, with Eugen Jochum conducting the Dresden Staatskapelle, proudly avails itself of the Urtext versions edited by Richard Haas and Leopold Nowak — the very editions Krostvedt calls into question. So now, I ask myself, where do I go for my authentic Bruckner fix? And given the rage for the Urtexte that has ruled Bruckner performance since at least the 1960s, are there any recordings of the earlier published editions left in the catolog? Just how much more shopping and expense will Korstvedt's new scholarly fashion require?

Still More Carter

Last week, I recounted my impressions of Elliott Carter's new Concertino for bass clarinet and chamber orchestra, which received its US premiere June 18 in New York City. It seems, however, I'm still not quite up to date. An even newer work by Mr. Carter, a double concerto for piano, percussion, and chamber orchestra, titled "Conversations" and written when the composer was a spry 101, has just been performed for the the first time in the UK, and if reviews from the Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Guardian, and the Arts Desk can be believed, its an exciting, major new piece. They're using words like witty, dazzling, pungent and beautifully engineered, zip, and zest to describe it.(But, seriously, who trusts the judgment of mere Brits when it comes to modern American music? We must wait until our neo-con populist American critics weigh in before we may express an informed opinion.)

So when is it coming to the States? The Boosey website gives no indication.

The title, Conversations, by the way, is in keeping with Mr. Carter's penchant, more pronounced in recent years, for describing his music in ways that evoke people talking -- what Andrew Clark calls his "succinct musical metaphors for social interchange." In a sense, he is continuing a pattern established by Charles Ives, who called the first two movements of his Second String Quartet "Discussions" and "Arguments." That example appears to have stuck with Mr. Carter. But if he wants to continue, I'd like to suggest a few less cerebral, more intimate forms of discourse: How about "Flirtations," for clarinet and percussion?

"Seductions," for piano and strings?

"Phone Sex," for trombone and orchestra?

Dreary Sunday

I had intended to hear the The Crossing in Chestnut Hill this afternoon, but I'm home nursing what feels like a sprained foot. I have no idea how this happened. I woke up fine yesterday, but by mid-afternoon it hurt like the the dickens, and it was even worse this morning. I don't remember hitting it or twisting it. I've been chomping acetominophen like M&Ms, and that's helped somewhat, but I think the best strategy would be to stay off it for a day.

So, I read some more the The Plague while listening to Eugen Jochum's recording of Bruckner's Eighth and Haitink's recording of Images and Jeux by Debussy. Fortunately, it's not very hot this afternoon, or I'd really be laid out. It's clouding up now, and there's a cool breeze coming in the bedroom window. It's beginning to feel like rain.

Totally worth the trip

Last night I took the train to New York, where I attended the US premiere of Elliott Carter’s Concertino for Bass Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra. I almost didn’t go. It’s only a nine-minute piece, and I figured with the cost of the ticket, train fare from and parking in Trenton, and subway fare from Penn Station to the Miller Theater, it worked out to about $7.50 per minute. Plus I had been invited to a good concert in Philadelphia I could have attended for free.

But I made the right choice. The Concertino, though brief, was substantial and memorable. (And let’s face it, nine minutes is about as long as Carter writes anymore. If any new piece of his is going to be substantial, it’s going to be substantial in under ten.)

Carter wrote it as a surprise for the clarinetist Virgil Blackwell, who is also his personal assistant. According John Schaefer, the evening’s emcee, the first inkling Blackwell had that the piece was in the works was when he received a fax with a few measures of music scribbled on it and from Carter that said, “Is this possible?”

The piece is very much in Carter’s recent lyrical vein, a la the Flute Concerto. It appeared to be in three sections: fast – slow – fast. The slow section was especially lovely, with the soloist playing against soft, sustained chords provided by a trio of flutes -- more like a sextet, really, since each of the flutists was required to double on alto, bass or piccolo. The rest of the ensemble consisted of strings, contrabassoon (!), piano, and the usual (for Carter) array of percussion, all of which seemed to be used largely as punctuation. Louis Karchin conducted the Orchestra of the League of Composers.

Mr. Carter was in attendance, looking somewhat thinner than he did when I last saw him, a few days after his hundredth birthday. He received a warm and extended ovation after the performance. Blackwell seemed exhilarated during the intermission, when I overheard him telling friends what a great piece he thought it was. It goes without saying we need a recording.

The rest of the program was also very strong, which brought the evening's cost per minute down a bit. Fred Sherry showed up to reprise Babbitt’s More Melismata, which I heard him play in Princeton two weeks ago. I especially liked Shulamit Ran’s Silent Voices, a short chamber symphony receiving its US premiere. The work was inspired by a Holocaust poem, which was read as a preface by baritone Peter Van Derick.

The second half consisted entirely of world premieres: Sound Merger by Arthur Kreiger; Talking Points (Right Wing Echo Chamber) by David Rakowski; and Violent, Violent Sea by the young hottie Missy Mazzoli. They all had much grander, fatter sonorities than the Carter or the Ran, which made them attractive to listen to, though they didn’t seem as rich in ideas. The Kreiger included an electronic soundtrack. The Rakowski was a small concerto for cello soloist (Fred Sherry again) and string orchestra that the composer described as “apolitical music with a political title.”

Rakowski is something of a clown, and the classical music world can certainly use a few of those. He joked around a lot during his interview with Schaefer, and, after receiving his ovation when the piece was over, returned to his seat by jumping off the front of the stage. The voice and the delivery reminded me somewhat of Garry Shandling.

Mazzoli’s piece seemed to be built around glissandi in the marimba and vibraphone, and there were a lot of wavy figures in the string writing, as befits a piece about the sea. It was all very solid and professional, but as I remarked to another listener after the performance, I liked La Mer better the first time.

“Let’s not go there,” he said.

New book on modern music

One of the things I didn’t expect would happen when I started this blog — but which I certainly should have expected — is that I occasionally receive requests from publishers and recording companies to help their advertising by mentioning them on this site. Usually, I ignore them, but this week an announcement for a new book from the University of Rochester Press showed up in my inbox, and I thought I’d pass it along. It looks interesting enough that I’d like to pick up a copy for myself, if it ever shows up on sale anywhere for much less that the $49.95 list:

Three Questions for Sixty-five Composers
Bálint András Varga

Do today's composers draw inspiration from life experiences or from, say, the natural world?

What influences, past and present, have influenced recent composers?
How essential is it for a composer to develop a personal style, and when does this degenerate into self-repetition?

These are questions about which some of the most important composers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century often have quite strong feelings — but have seldom been asked.

In this pathbreaking book, Bálint András Varga puts these three questions to such renowned composers as Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Alberto Ginastera, Sofia Gubaidulina, Hans Werner Henze, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Luigi Nono, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Toru Takemitsu, and Iannis Xenakis. Varga's sensitive English renderings capture the subtleties of their sometimes confident, sometimes hesitant, answers.

All statements from English-speaking composers — such as Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Morton Feldman, Lukas Foss, Steve Reich, Gunther Schuller, and Sir Michael Tippett — consist of the composers' own carefully chosen words.

Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers is vital reading for anybody interested in the current state of music and the arts.

So there. See it at www.urpress.com.